SMOKING will be banned in the grounds of all hospitals in Gwent - with the probable exception of the Royal Gwent - by the end of March next year.

And the area's biggest hospital is set to follow suit as soon as safety concerns over patients smoking on Belle Vue Lane - described as "hazardousand narrow" in an Aneurin Bevan Health Board report - can be addressed.

A ban already exists for all hospitals and health board premises in Gwent and a ban on smoking in the grounds already exists at the new Ysbyty Aneurin Bevan, at Ebbw Vale.

Such a ban will also operate at the £172 million Ysbyty Ystrad Fawr, near Ystrad Mynach, which opens in September, extending into all health board sites in Caerphilly.

From October, hospitals and health board premises in Blaenau Gwent and Monmouthshire - including Nevill Hall Hospital, Abergavenny - will operate a smoke-free grounds policy, and this will be extended next year to the grounds of such premises in Torfaen and Newport probably on No Smoking Day, March 9 2012.

At the Royal Gwent, the issue of smoke-free grounds is complicated by the sheer size of the site and the potential implications, particularly regarding patients popping out for a cigarette.

A popular place to do this is outside the doors to the hospital's Belle Vue entrance.

Banning smoking on the grounds could drive smokers out onto the nearby narrow pavement on busy Belle Vue Lane, raising safety concerns.

Health boards across Wales have been drawing up and implementing proposals for smoke-free hospital grounds and the policy is a high profile one for the NHS in Wales and the Welsh Government.

In February it launched a consultation process on reducing smoking and exposure to secondhand smoke, with an ambitious aim of creating a 'smoke-free society' and cutting smoking levels by a third, to 16 per cent, by 2020.

The health board's 19-page report detailing its smoke-free grounds proposal emphasises the importance of the organisation setting an example by discouraging smoking and promoting health and well being to patients and public.

It also emphasises the need to offer NRT (nicotine replacement therapy) and predicts a slight rise in the health board's £6,000 a year expenditure on the treatment.