HOSPITAL bosses have been praised for their stop smoking programme by the government's top nursing adviser.

When the Royal Bolton Hospital formed its Stub It Out programme two years ago it was the only one of its kind in the country - and since then more than 1,800 patients have kicked the habit.

That has led to praise from Britain's chief nursing officer Chris Beasley, England's most senior nurse.

In this month's national Chief Officer's Bulletin, produced by the Department of Health, he said: 'Pre-op nurses are playing the most significant role in a scheme'.

Bolton's Stop Smoking service launched a programme for staff in 2003, training them to offer support for surgery patients to give up.

Then, 12 months ago, a second scheme was introduced where other in-patients who wanted to stub it out were given support by specially trained staff.

The hospital has also introduced a complete ban on smoking within all of its buildings as of January 1, this year, and is working with the government in a bid to be completely smoke-free by the end of the year.

But visitors and patients can still smoke in specially built - and controversial - outside shelters, which were built at a cost of £25,000. Smoking cessation specialist for the hospital Gary Bickerstaffe said: "Not only is the hospital being very proactive in supporting a nationwide workplace smoking ban, but we are also being very innovative in looking at ways of getting help to people who want to stop smoking.

"Many hospitals around the whole of England are looking at Bolton to see if they can learn from our progress."

Any surgical patients who are admitted to the hospital and identified as a smoker who wants to quit can be directly referred to the stop smoking services and are contacted with support and advice before their operation.

Nurses, doctors and other hospital staff are trained to offer help to patients who have been admitted to hospital for a period of time.

They can advise on different types of nicotine therapy and help the patient decide which one to choose.

In Bolton, 29.6 per cent of people smoke, above the national average of 27 per cent.

In some parts of the borough, including the Hall 'I'th' Wood estate, this figure can be as high as 65 per cent.