PATIENTS and relatives caught having a crafty cigarette outside hospital buildings will be targeted by quit smoking officers.

They are to be offered free patches and gum if they are spotted lighting up at the University Hospital of North Staffordshire in breach of its smoking ban.

Some have left the complex's boss fuming by even taking sneaky drags at the entrances of the showpiece cancer and maternity units, which have just opened.

Trust chairman Mike Brereton, pictured, said: "It is disappointing that we have just delivered the finest design and build hospital developments ever seen in North Staffordshire and some people insist in using them as an ash tray.

"They have been seen actually stubbing out their cigarettes on the lovely white pillars by the frontages.

"The buildings are breathtaking and a national beacon for North Staffordshire, yet these people are undermining their reputation by smoking right at the entrance. They should be shamed in some way into refraining."

Mr Brereton was also critical of high-fat snacks and sugar-filled fizzy drinks on sale in vending machines in the £70 million centres, which are the first phase of the Potteries long-awaited £400 million "superhospital" on the City General site.

He said: "During one visit I saw someone several stones overweight buying a chocolate bar on their way to the entrance for a fag.

"I know these machines are privately owned and I don't expect them to offer only bread and water, but I feel we should still be able to influence the type of products in them."

Chief Executive Julia Bridgewater said although the cigarette ban extended across the hospital's sprawling site, the Trust should be stricter in keeping smokers away from the immediate entrance of buildings.

"The habit is prohibited, but it is very difficult to enforce it among the public," she added. "We can't go up and give someone a £50 fine because they probably won't have the money and can't afford it anyway."

She felt the way forward was education, and revealed that Stoke-on-Trent Primary Care Trust had funded a post to work among hospital smokers offering advice and quit packs that included patches and gum.

Medical director Robert Courteney-Harris said his teenage son had been shocked to see a heavily pregnant women smoking by the front doors of the new maternity block.

"Some people even light up right next to the No Smoking signs," he said.

A number of cigarette butts were seen scattered around the maternity entrance yesterday and a survey seeking staff's views of the new developments concluded that while they were superb, more bins should be provided for dog-ends.

A spokesman for the hospital said that in recent weeks, five small fires in waste bins at the hospital had broken out.

Some of the fires were adjacent to the hospital's main entrances.

She said: "The potential for a full-scale disaster is there.

The fire service were called out to the fires and in each case, the cause was found to be a carelessly discarded cigarette. It's highly alarming."