Mental health units were given a temporary year-long exemption from enforcing the policy when the smoking ban came in last year. Now a survey by the Royal College of Psychiatrists has found only 3% of patients in one trust supported the ban. Are mental health patients going to rebel when the ban comes in force for them on July 1?

It wouldn't be much of a ban if we are going to start making exceptions. Also, the fundamental issue remains: smoking is bad for your health directly, and, in a passive sense, the health of others. The medical facts on smoking do not change. Perhaps more efforts need to be directed towards getting people off cigarettes, regardless of their mental health.

I think for some people with mental health problems smoking is a way of getting through each day with less stress. I also think that mental health inpatients have so many restrictions on their liberty anyway that not allowing them the right to smoke is one step too far.

 I think you have to think of the rights of the staff to work in a smoke-free environment. And smoking has also been linked to higher rates of depression

Forgive me for my ignorance but the ban on smoking is not a personal order that you stop smoking it is about where you are permitted to smoke is it not. Therefore mental health patients will be able to smoke but not to the detriment of the health of those who like to breathe fresh air or am I wrong?   

yes you are right lin, but what about patients who are in locked wards? are there going to be designated smoking areas within those wards?

Maybe someone may be able and willing to answer who works within a locked ward? It is a very valid point you make? 

at the time of the royal college of psychiatrists survey at Mersey Care NHS Trust the trust had a general non-smoking policy that entailed one or two smoking rooms on each ward, with all other enclosed areas being non-smoking.

Ok but who cleans the rooms? smoke does have a tendency to disperse into furnishings? However, people do have rights so who's rights overides whos and is that in itself oppressive. Could the NHS not come up with a scheme which would pacify all sides or is that just a pipe dream.

As  smoker I wholeheartedly agree with the ban. This topic has been debated on another forum I contribute to and I was shocked to discover that not only are prisons exempt but so is the bar at the House of Commons?????

 

well dare I say it, the bar at the house of commons is full of people with mental health problems!

The House of Commons is famous for its double standards: it enjoyed relaxed licensing laws long before parliament deigned in 1988 to allow the rest of us to imbibe during the afternoon, let alone after 11pm. Which may explain some of the slurring and nonsense that comes out of MPs' mouths. Is it true that parliament exempted prisons from the smoking ban? That would indeed be a strange privilege. Or perhaps it was indicative of the fears of many MPs that they were heading for a spell at Her Majesty's pleasure.

Yes they should, have you read the Enstrom/Kabat study?

http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/326/7398/1057

Enstrom/Kabat study

8th August 2006 the HSE in their document OC 255/15 article14? state
" HSE cannot produce epidemiological evidence to link levels of exposure to second hand smoke to the raised risk of contracting specific diseases".

9 The evidential link between individual circumstances of exposure to risk in

exempted premises will be hard to establish. In essence, HSE cannot

produce epidemiological evidence to link levels of exposure to SHS to the

raised risk of contracting specific diseases and it is therefore difficult to prove

health-related breaches of the Health and Safety at Work Act. Inspectors

are therefore urged to exercise caution in considering any formal

enforcement action in relation to SHS (with one exception – see below).

However, the full impact of the smoking ban is difficult to foresee

completely, and if serious circumstances emerge where inspectors

believe they must consider enforcement, then they should consult

Health Unit and the Policy Team (see Annex 2 for contacts) before taking

action. The exception to this guidance relates to pre-existing health

conditions of employees which can be made worse by exposure to second

hand smoke e.g. respiratory or cardiovascular disease, or to pregnancy. In

such circumstances, specialist and medical advice may be necessary to

secure support for enforcement action.

http://cleanairquality.blogspot.com/

Air quality testing by Johns Hopkins University, the American Cancer Society, a Minnesota Environmental Health Department, and various researchers whose testing and report was peer reviewed and published in the esteemed British Medical Journal......prove that secondhand smoke is 2.6 - 25,000 times SAFER than occupational (OSHA) workplace regulations:

This vindictive ban is more about control, it is inhumane to  ban those who are forced in mental unit, and cruel, get some decent ventilation.

Very interesting report.

I do think that in a psychiatric uni there should be a smoking room.  Patients are not always allowed to leave the unit, so therefore going outside for a cigarette is impossible.  For those who are addicted to smoking, having that taken away from them while an inpatient is likely to result in withdrawal symptoms etc, which aside from anything else, could interfere with assessments/treatments, because some of the behaviours they are displaying due to this may not be easily disguinishable from ways in which their mental illness manifests itself.