A health chief has backed new guidance from the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (Nice), which advises all NHS hospitals to ban smoking on their premises.

NICE has also told hospitals to ensure staff offer more help to patients to quit.

Royal Blackburn Hospital has already removed smoking shelters, but said the new guidance would be ‘difficult to enforce’.

Dominic Harrison, director of public health at Blackburn with Darwen Council, said: “Smoking is a major health concern in the borough and a major cause for people coming into Royal Blackburn Hospital in the first place.

“Hospital staff on all levels need to feel empowered to help enforce this guidance.

“We also know treatment is much more effective for people who don't smoke and members of the public want to be able to feel they can enter our hospital without having to walk through people smoking.”