I HAVE had occasion to visit several Glasgow and Edinburgh hospitals over the past three years and was delighted when NHS Scotland banned smoking inside both hospital buildings and their grounds. However, there are still many smokers ignoring this ban.

On a clinic visit to the Queen Elizabeth University Hospital yesterday with my grandson, recently a patient in the Schiehallion (children’s cancer) ward, we were dismayed to see smokers everywhere, and worse, many cigarette butts – we counted 30 of them – tramped into the base of the children’s play area.

When I suggested, politely, to one person smoking at the door of Gartnavel Hospital that a less-than-100-yard walk to Bingham’s Pond would allow him to smoke legally, I got a less than complimentary response. The volunteer “meeter and greeter” in the hospital foyer told me staff were understandably reluctant to risk similar abuse.

I don’t claim to have a solution, but very much hope that those in authority will stop turning a blind eye to the problem, for everyone’s sake.

Ailsa Ferguson,

120 Hutton, Glasgow.