AN advertising campaign telling the public smoking on NHS grounds is nearly at an end was launched in Glasgow.

All NHS grounds across Scotland will be smokefree by March 31.

From this date, patients, visitors and staff will be asked to wait until they are off NHS grounds before lighting up.

This ambitious move to achieve smokefree status in the grounds of every hospital, health centre and NHS building across the country is part of a national drive to create a tobacco-free generation within Scotland by 2034.

Minister for Public Health, Maureen Watt MSP, yesterday launched the major new national TV and radio campaign asking smokers for their help to make this vision a reality.

Speaking at the event held at the New Stobhill Hospital where the national TV advert was filmed, she said: "Hospitals are places where people come to recover from illness and injury, so it can't be right for patients and visitors to have to walk through clouds of smoke on hospital grounds.

"Tobacco is the biggest cause of preventable death in Scotland - contributing to more than 13,000 deaths a year.

"There can be no place for this deadly product on NHS hospital grounds."

The campaign was developed by NHS Heath Scotland, a national health board which works with the public, private and third sectors to reduce health inequalities and improve health.