National Health Service (NHS) decided to ban smoking in its grounds with the recent launch of a consultation. But Unison has induced NHS not to impose a smoking ban on its hospital sites.

The local Unison branch said there were interests about fairness to staff, patients and visitors. Unison also said there were fears about people trying to avoid such a ban, and the potential for this leading to a risk of fire.

Unison reported it issued a survey to its members and other staff, and that the response showed that 87% of those who took part had concerns about the proposed total ban. More than half who took part were said to be non-smokers.

Sandra Dee Masson, chair of the Unison branch, said: "We all know that even though people are only meant to smoke in the designated smoking shelters on NHS sites at the moment, a lot of smokers are still smoking in other, more dangerous places like loading bays outside the entrances to hospitals and in toilets. Staves are also interested about the effect this will have on vulnerable patients."

She added: "We are therefore asking NHS Grampian to reconsider the total ban and instead beef up enforcement of the current arrangements and continue to improve the support available to staff, patients and visitors who wish to give up smoking. She thinks that the current drive to reduce smoking on NHS Grampian sites will be undermined if an unenforceable total ban is introduced.

In this year NHS Grampian launched its consultation. The consultation on extending the ban to all grounds includes staff, patients, visitors and local community groups.

The main aim of the NHS Grampian is to improve the health of everyone in the north east. These kinds of consultations will welcome suggestions on how NHS Grampian can raise awareness of the revised tobacco policy, any potential problems in implementing the smoking ban, and which measures they can use to help smokers follow the policy.

Antismoking advocates said that they would like to see workplace smoking bans extended to all industries; they estimate that such a policy would cut overall smoking prevalence by 10% and have the greatest impact on groups with the highest smoking rates.