Hospital's £15k plan to shelter smokers has campaigners fuming

The project comes in advance of a government ban on smoking in public places and as the hospital is making cuts of £7.5million and laying off staff. Kingston Hospital said the weather-proof shelter was being built in response to complaints from residents who objected to staff and patients congregating to smoke in the streets. They began smoking outside after the hospital banned smoking in its buildings at the start of the year.

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But health campaigners said providing an outdoor space for smokers was not the answer. Amanda Sandford of anti-smoking campaign Ash said: "This is not a good use of money. Hospitals are over-stretched already, with limited resources.

"A better use of the money would be to put it into 'stop smoking' projects for staff and patients.

"There's very little need for provision for short-term visitors because the general expectation is that if you visit a hospital you don't smoke.

"It's more difficult for longerterm patients and staff but even so it should be a basic requirement that anyone working in the health sector does not smoke.

"It's so detrimental to everyone's health that it sends out the wrong message. This is just totally inappropriate."

But Geoff Martin of London Health Emergency said: "It's a fact that a lot of people smoke in the health service. While plenty would like to stop, to deny them their one vice is not really going to help. You need to look at the root cause of why health service workers are smokers.

"It's a very stressful job and Kingston is making £7.5 million of cuts and getting rid of 100 staff so people are really worried about their futures."

A spokeswoman for Kingston Hospital said: "We became a smoke-free site in January this year, which means that smoking isn't allowed in our building or on our grounds. This applies to patients, visitors and staff and is in line with government policy.

"However, this meant that visitors and members of staff started going off-site to smoke and were using neighbouring roads as a regular place for smoking.

"After receiving some complaints from local residents we held a public meeting last month to discuss the best way to resolve the situation. We decided to apply for planning permission for a shelter to be constructed with appropriate seating and waste bins on the very edge of the site, just inside the perimeter wall.

"This was felt to be a reasonable solution to preventing staff and visitors from smoking in neighbouring roads but still complying with a smoke-free hospital site."