Smoking kills one Londoner an hour

The disastrous effects of smoking on public health are laid bare today.

A new report reveals that smoking claims at least one life every hour in London, accounting for almost one in four deaths among men.

Patients with diseases linked to tobacco take up 1,100 hospital beds in the capital every day - almost enough to fill the whole of Guy's and St Thomas' hospitals.

Public health officials who put together the report say they were shocked at their own findings and called for urgent measures to tackle the problem.

The report was compiled by the London Health Observatory, a public health watchdog set up by the Government. Months were spent researching a detailed account of exactly how smoking affects the wellbeing of people living in the capital.

The researchers calculate that the habit is killing more than 10,500 men and women aged over 35 every year in London.

They estimate that 23 per cent of male deaths every year are caused

by smoking, while one in every eight women's deaths are tobaccorelated.

Just under a third of the deaths are from cancer. Another third are from respiratory diseases caused by tobacco. Lung disease, heart disease and diseases of the circulation claim thousands more lives.

A detailed analysis of existing data, held by the Department of Health and local health authorities, suggests smoking costs the NHS in London at least £2 million a week.

A breakdown of death and illness caused by smoking in each borough shows that the situation is most serious in Tower Hamlets, where smoking causes 22 per cent of all deaths - six per cent more than in Richmond.

In Barking and Dagenham, another blackspot, smoking causes 27 per cent of all deaths among men.

Dr Bobbie Jacobson, director of the London Health Observatory, said: "That tobacco causes preventable deaths is not new, but we were shocked by the scale of the burden of tobacco - both to Londoners and to the capital's health services.

"Our findings show that we must re-double our efforts to tackle the health divide caused by tobacco where the poorest smokers suffer most."

The findings will dismay government health chiefs, who have invested millions in anti-smoking programmes and campaigns.

In a recent report highlighting the devastating impact of smoking on fertility, the British Medical Association issued a plea to celebrities not to glamourise the habit. They fear television and magazine images of celebrities smoking, such as Kate Moss and Elizabeth Hurley, encourage young girls to take up the habit.

Dr Konrad Jamrozik, professor of primary care epidemiology at London University's Imperial College, said: "This report shows that tobacco is still the major cause of premature death in this city.

"While road accident deaths occur on London's busy streets at a rate of under one per day, one Londoner's life every hour is stubbed out by smoking cigarettes."