At least the NHS are given people a choice: quit smoking or you may not receive life saving treatment. It gives an entire new meaning to the phrase 'smoking kills!'
The NHS is there to serve the people, not to refuse the individuals who need help the most until they quit a legally backed and perhaps entirely unrelated activity.

It may cost them a little extra money in recovery time, money which as others have stated has been payed by smokers in taxes many times over, yet since when did the NHS start putting a monetary value on a human life... and decide that in certain circumstances it might be too expensive.

Kat Slowe, Dorchester, UK

It's very reassuring to see others recognise this witch hunt lunacy for what it is.
Well said Rufus, that's the nail on the head.
How about banning the drinkers from any medical attention to their livers? What about use of illegal substances? Here's another one, vegetarians. They don't eat meat so why not ban them too? How would they feel?
This pathetic excuse that smokers take longer to heal is absolute bunkum. There are no FACTS to prove this categorically or that smoking leads to cancer. I've known many die from cancer who never touched a cigarette, and even more who smoked since their teens and lived to a ripe old age.

This whole no smoking lark is nothing more than a wholely unjustified witch hunt. Segregation gone mad. What next? People with bad teeth (me) are vile and shouldn't go to a dentist?

I wonder what the next pathetic excuse to divide the people will be?

This exclusion is nothing more than discrimination, which I thought was against the law!

Colin Nunn, Newcastle upon tyne, Tyne & Wear

When you consider the National Insurance a smoker has paid in over 40 years together with the incredible tax on tobacco, he has paid enough for a private ward.

Terence, Alcala, Spain

If the NHS can opt-out of treating fat people or smokers, when we will be able to opt-out of funding the NHS?

Tony G, Harrogate, UK

Vanessa Bourne's job is sponsored by a Private Health company who obviously want as much bussines in the form of patients needing surgery.
Of course she will slag off her competitor,( the NHS!).

jayne Biddiscombe, somerset, uk

Well actually what they are saying is that by stopping smoking you will have less morbidity from the proceedure - boy you lot moan on when anything occurs. Cannot you not see the reasons - its to help you recover better - with less time in hopsital and a more sucessful proceedure. If that is not what you would like - please continue somoking -just no complaints when you recover slowly and do less well post-op.

Graeme, Melbourne, Australia

Far greater savings could be realized if treatment were also withheld from persons who choose to engage in sport, at least for those injuries and conditions caused or aggravated by these activities. All of us have made poor choices - why should one particular choice, however bad, be punished by an added three months of limited mobility, pain (and painkillers), and restricted activity on the job and at home.

One also wonders how the stress of quitting smoking, or of failing in this often impossible goal, contributes to recovery from surgery.

While we might all wish that no one smoked, that horse left the barn centuries ago.

David, Cincinnati, USA

This is a sensible proposal. I believe there should be further restrictions on people whose lifestyle would be detrimental to any surgical outcome.

Why not also require people to give up alcohol and lose weight . We should also consider withholding treatment for anyone who is older than the national average lifespan.

Such a regime would be good for taxpayers and very good for the private medical industry in which I will be purchasing shares when the markets open tomorrow

Don , Coventry,

If it is the case that smokers are to be denied treatment then so be it.

I contribute far more to the NHS than I take out, I'm a regular blood donor, a smoker (so I'm more than self-funding for them) and I've been to hospital fewer than once a year, almost exclusively as a result of sporting injuries.

No more.

No more subsidising the NHS under those lunatics. My tobacco will from now on come from other EU countries. Let them benefit from the stupidity in this country. And the only blood that they're likely to get from me will be dripped on the floor of A&E, and I'm binning the donor card that I signed on my 18th birthday and have carried with me ever since.

While I can see that tobacco is now what witchcraft was in the 16th century, the fact that the implication that treatment will be withheld regardless of whether or not the condition is smoking related is intolerable for a SERVICE that I am paying, and paying over the odds, for.

Rufus, Oxford, UK

Vanessa Bourne appears to have hit the nail on the head.
Smokers have become an excuse-all for the NHS and DoH.

Chris, Cornwall,

NHS managers want to deny treatment to smokers because recovery will take longer. I'm sure they are correct in that. It is a sound business decision.

It is also sensible because even if these smokers need treatment they won't be added to waiting lists, so effectively will be invisible. They won't exist - convenient for targets.

Businesses exist to get results,maximise profit and reduce cost, but, forgive my naivety, I thought the NHS was supposed to give health services to the nation.

No one denies smoking is bad for your health, but the educated middle classes are better at not starting, or giving up, than the poorer, less educated classes. They have healthier lifestyles and have less need for healthcare than poorer people, and going private is less of a problem.

So even if it is not the intention, adoption of these ideas will discriminate against precisely those groups who most need free healthcare.

Are we returning to the Victorian concept of the undeserving poor ?

Nick Moore, Saint Ouen, France

OK, Peter, in Belfast...
smoking causes blood vessels to narrow,decreasing amount of oxygen to the healing area.
smoking decreases amount of oxygen in the blood. healing tissues need oxygen.
Smoking decreases formation of collagen, which is like a connective tissue type of stuff...necessary for healing tissues ti knit together.
Smoking increases production of CYANIDE in the bloodstream, this makes it harder for the chemocals in the body to transport any available oxygen to the healing area.
Jayne Biddiscombe. Nurse, Coronary care.

jayne Biddiscombe, somerset, uk

First they came for the smokers, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a smoker... I'm just thankful we have no such abomination as the NHS in our country. Yet.

Reid Reynolds, Herndon, Virginia/USA

i would like to see the study this was based on i.e. smokers take longer to heal,have more complications etc

peter, belfast,

Not sure why this is only going to impact those who smoke. What about the obese or are we supposed to believe that the current epidemic is caused purely by defective genes rather than doing no exercise and eating rubbish.

Stephanie, London, England

It's all very well targeting smokers but what about other self inflictied addictions. Is the NHS going to deny for example drug addicts and alcoholics treatment as well. I am a non smoker drink very little and don't do drugs. I also agree with Vanessa Bourne that hospital aquired infections need to be tackled as a matter of urgency.

Jules, Sheffield, England

If patients were fed decent food or, in some cases, food at all they would recover faster. Too much like rocket science for the NHS though.

eddie reader, bimingham, uk