Health board fined almost £100k after smoking policy breaches

“TROUBLED” NHS mental health unit which failed to adequately record its management of its smoking policy has resulted in a health board being ordered to pay almost £100,000.

- PHILIP DEWEY Reporter

It comes as the unit was probed by external investigators following damning inspection reports.

Hafan y Coed facility at Llandough hospital, in the Vale of Glamorgan, failed to comply with an enforcement notice issued by South Wales Fire and Rescue Service (SWERS) after patients were seen to be flouting a smoking policy.

A sentencing hearing at Cardiff Crown Court heard Cardiff and Vale University Health Board, which runs the unit, admitted the failure, on the basis that management of the smoking policy and checks were carried out, but were not properly recorded in August and September 2021.

In April of that year, an authorised inspector from SWERS attended the facility and witnessed patients smoking in the lobby area, signs of cigarettes being put out on door frames and window sills, hundreds of butts left in the courtyard and patients possessing their own lighters.

As a result, an enforcement notice was issued to Hafan y Coed, and a further inspection was arranged in May 2021, but upon returning the fire service found an “unchanged situation.”