SCOTLAND'S hospitals are "harming the health of patients and the wider public" by banning electronic cigarettes from the grounds, according to an ethics expert.

In a respectable medical journal Swiss researcher David Shaw has attacked health boards for prohibiting use of the new devices, which deliver a nicotine hit using vapour rather than smoke.

A survey earlier this year found all but one health board - NHS Lothian - was planning to ban use of e-cigarettes along with traditional tobacco products on their premises.

However, writing in the British Medical Journal Mr Shaw said this "sends the message that NHS Scotland cares more about image than about improving the health of its patients and visitors to its hospitals".

Arguing that the current ban on conventional cigarettes in hospital grounds is not enforced, he continued: "Permitting e-cigarette use on hospital grounds would provide much more positive role modelling for children than seeing pregnant women and patients with cancer smoking conventional cigarettes in subzero temperatures at the main entrance to hospitals."

He also believes hospitals are "missing a great public health opportunity."

He noted that Public Health England recently published an evidence review which concluded e-cigarettes can help people quit smoking and that they are 95 per cent safer than conventional cigarettes.

Mr Shaw, a senior research fellow at the Institute for Biomedical Ethics in Basel University, went on to say: "If patients who smoke were given free e-cigarettes and the ban on normal cigarettes on hospital grounds were strictly enforced, it might improve health and reduce passive smoking around the hospital.

"Furthermore, any patients who switched to e-cigarettes during a hospital stay might continue vaping rather than return to tobacco cigarettes, further benefitting public health."

Sheila Duffy, chief executive of Ash Scotland which campaigns on smoking issues, said e-cigarettes are not currently licensed quit aids which the NHS can prescribe.

"While short-term evidence suggests they are much safer for users than tobacco smoke, opinion is divided about their public health benefits with some concerned that they normalise nicotine addiction.

Ms Duffy said: "For me there is absolutely no question that creating smoke-free hospital grounds is worth striving for because the damage of tobacco is unquestionable. On that basis I think there is a strong case for banning cigalikes - e-cigarettes that look like normal cigarettes - because they can cause confusion with enforcement."

She added that Ash Scotland had not called for other types of e-cigarettes to be banned from hospital grounds and a balance needed to be struck. Smokers should not be discouraged from switching to e-cigarettes, she said, but it is also desirable for the next generation to grow up free from all forms of nicotine addiction.

Mr Shaw explained that he was inspired to write the BMJ article after observing the number of patients smoking when his wife was in a Glasgow maternity hospital.

While measures are being taken to enshrine smoke-free hospital grounds in law, the Scottish Government has left individual health boards to determine their own policies on e-cigarettes.

In February a survey found all health boards except NHS Lothian had ruled against the use of vaping devices.

Dr Catherine Calderwood, Scotland’s Chief Medical Officer, said: “The Scottish Government has asked all NHS boards to make hospital grounds tobacco free, and are bringing a Health Bill through parliament that includes measures to make it an offence to smoke near hospital buildings.

"E-cigarettes are not included in this guidance or proposed legislation, and decisions on whether to allow them on hospital grounds are entirely a matter for the boards concerned.

“The Scottish Government’s position is that, while more research is needed, e-cigarettes are almost certainly less harmful than tobacco, and if people are using them as an aid to quit smoking, that is a good thing.”