OXFORD'S Nuffield Orthopaedic Hospital is the first in the county to go totally smoke-free.

The specialist NHS hospital in Headington has been undergoing extensive rebuilding work and the latest phase of work is due to be completed by the end of the month.

To tie in with the completion of the new buildings in Windmill Road, two smoking areas, behind the operating theatres and beneath the staff restaurant, were scrapped on August 1.

The NOC has stolen a march on the John Radcliffe Hospital in Headington and other hospitals, including the Horton and the Churchill, which are part of the separate Oxford Radcliffe Hospitals NHS Trust. They plan to be totally smoke-free by January 1, in line with Department of Health guidelines.

Debbie Lymn, associate director of human resources at the NOC, said there were "fewer and fewer" staff who smoked out of a total of 1,000, but that included "a hardcore" of staff who persisted in lighting up.

She added: "It seemed logical to tie in the completion of the new buildings with encouraging both staff and patients to kick the habit.

"The concept of no-smoking sites has been fully supported by the nursing unions, including the Royal College of Nursing, and Unison, and there have been no official objections.

"The smoking areas were well out of sight, but having smokers outside the hospital was not an image we wanted to promote.

"This is a new concept that will take time to bed in, but we hope that it will quickly become the accepted norm."

Ms Lymn said staff would be encouraged to challenge patients and other staff if they saw them smoking on site, and that repeat offenders among staff would face internal policy procedures, including disciplinary action as a "last resort".

She added that a very small number of patients with special needs, including those from the site's Oxford Centre of Enablement, would be allowed to continue smoking on site, instead of being wheeled off site by relatives.

"In the short term, there will be limited exceptions where we will permit patients to smoke but that is in line with Department of Health guidelines currently issued regarding smoke-free hospitals.

"However, patients are now being briefed before they come into hospital that they will not be permitted to smoke on site."

Elika Saedi, a spokesman for the Oxford Radcliffe Hospitals NHS Trust, said smoking was banned inside hospital buildings in 1999, and the trust was preparing staff for a smoke-free site from January 1, 2007.

She added: "From September onwards there will be a major push on this," she added.

Geoff Martin, a spokesman for patients' watchdog Health Emergency, said: "It's definitely the right thing to do."