Medway hospital has been told it should remove its £8,000 smoking shelters and end the “terrible spectacle of people on drips in hospital gowns smoking outside” by introducing an outright ban on cigarettes.

Health watchdog, the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence, said staff and visitors should not smoke anywhere on the grounds of a hospital or clinic.

It has also advised that all patients who smoke be given advice and nicotine patches from specially trained experts to help them give up while they receive care.

The guidance means that Medway NHS Foundation Trust should take down its two smoking shelters it installed earlier this year.

Individual trusts will be left to follow the guidance as they see fit, but NICE said staff who ignore hospital rules, for example by smoking in their uniform, could face disciplinary action.

Prof Mike Kelly, director of the Centre for Public Health Excellence, said: “We need to end this terrible spectacle of people on drips in hospital gowns smoking outside hospital entrances.

“It’s clearly absurd that the most lethal set of toxins to the human body are being passively encouraged in hospitals.

"We’ve known since the 1950s that smoking kills you and 61 years have passed and we’re now tackling the problem in hospitals. That’s too long.”

Nearly 80,000 people die each year due to smoking.

Treating illnesses caused by smoking costs the NHS an estimated £2.7 billion each year.