Posted By Paul Leadbetter Mike I must have missed something; what are the tragic events to which you refer? Paul

Posted By Paul Leadbetter Thanks, Ron I've found the story now; very sad. Paul

Posted By J Knight To whoever I inadvertently offended; 'on a frolic of one's own' is a legal phrase used to describe a situation where an employee is acting so far outside their expected work role as to be no longer accorded a duty of care by their employer. My comment was meant in this sense, and was not intended to trivailise murder. In Scotland, from the weekend before last, and in England & Wales from next year smoking on the premises will become very much more constrained anyway. And taking a risk based view, the number of people murderd on smoking breaks is very much lower than the number of people killed every year by the effects of tobacco. This event is about security, not about smoking, John

Posted By J Knight Hi Mike, We have similar issues, albeit on a smaller scale, as we have Hospices and Nursing Homes, also 24 hour operations, in extensive grounds and some in very remote and secluded areas. However you need to read the guidance published by the NHS on the operation of the new law in Scotland (http://www.clearingtheairscotland.com/faqs/pdf/Smoke%20Free%20Scotland.pdf), this will give you a picture of how things will probably pan out here. There are, for example, restrictions on the kind of smoking shelter we are allowed to provide, and there is no doubt at all that the intent of the Scottish law is to reduce smoking in general in Scotland, not simply to remove it from enclosed workplaces. It goes much further than the white paper, and is law. People nipping out for a fag may be at risk, but so are people walking to their cars, people inspecting drains, people delivering samples and so on. Security is the issue here, and I agree thatb its a very difficult area. Personal safety training and risk assessments can help; I'm sure that Suzy Lamplugh would help, and there are other organisations workign in this area. We have just been contacted by an organisation called Human Applications who have done work with Marie Cure Cancer Care on these types of things, John John

Posted By J Knight Mike, Patients/Service Users are allowed to smoke in Hospices and Nursing Homes in the new Scottish dispensation, provided that the room meets certain requirements. Visitors and Staff cannot smoke indoors at all; we don't make them leave the grounds, but smoking 'shelters' in Scotland can only be enclosed on 2 sides (or have sides which are more than 50% open if you wnat four sides). One of our Hospices in England already bans smoking indoors for everybody, but that is possible because Hospice stays nowadays are relatively short, and are usually for assessment purposes. One of the changes we have had to make in Scotland is that Service Users are no longer allowed to smoke in their rooms; we have allowed this in certain circumstances in the past when people have been too ill or disabled to leave their beds. The Scottish guidance effectively prohibits this, and it will be interesting to see how things pan out in England. I know that some NHS Trusts forbid smoking anywhere on the premises; so do some Local Government and commercial unertakings. We have been asked by some of our Retail Managers to make a similar stipulation for Charity Shops, but so far have avoided doing this; however this is less meaningful because many of our shops have no grounds at all, so people have to leave the premises to smoke anyway, John

Posted By jackw. Hi, We allow visitors and staff to smoke in residential units so long as they use designated smoking rooms, with proper ventilation etc. If you read it carefully you will find that the new smoking law in scotland does not in fact prohibit this. The guidance notes accompanying the law considers this to be bad practice. but not following guidance notes to the exact degree does NOT mean you are breaching the actual regulations.. ok maybe not acting in the spirit.. so why.. we feel it is much safer for staff on night shift not to leave the building..it also eliminates the security risk of having a door open whilst staff go out side for a "fag"