Employees who smoke should be allowed to attend stop smoking clinics during working hours without loss of pay, new public health guidance recommended today.

The National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (Nice) believes that by helping workers to quit, businesses will actually save money based on the increased productivity.

“For example, a business with 20 employees, of which typically 5 would smoke, could spend just £66 on providing brief advice (including employees’ time) and see an overall saving of around £350 based on improved productivity,” a spokeswoman for Nice said.

Nice, the independent organisation responsible for providing national guidance on the promotion of good health, has issued the new guidelines for every workplace in England, as they prepare to go smokefree from July 1.

Currently, smoking costs the NHS an estimated £1.5 billion each year, and costs industry an estimated £5 billion in lost productivity, absenteeism and fire damage.

Andrew Dillon, chief executive of Nice, said: “Going smokefree is a win-win situation for both employers and employees, and our advice sets out the best approach to making it happen.

“Our advice is based on the best evidence of which workplace approaches are effective for smokers and make business sense for employers.”

The recommendations include making information on local stop smoking services widely available at work and where feasible, where there is sufficient demand, providing on-site stop smoking support.

Amanda Sandford, research manager at the charity Action on Smoking and Health, said: “Providing employees are offered help and directed to services with a good track record, this seems to be a very sound policy and will reap benefits for the individual and the employer.”

But Simon Clark, director of Forest, the Freedom Organisation for the Right to Enjoy Smoking Tobacco, said it was “absolutely ridiculous” that workers should attend stop smoking clinics during working hours.

“It’s wrong to expect employers to accept employees taking time off, and I imagine their non-smoking colleagues will be very unhappy about it,” he said.

“It’s generally acknowledged these quit smoking courses are not very successful - it’s a matter for willpower. And they are likely to be open to abuse - people will take advantage as they have an excuse to take time off work.”

After July 1 this year, smoking will be banned in virtually all enclosed public places and workplaces in England, and failure to comply will be an offence.

In the first year after a smoking ban was introduced in Scotland in March 2006, figures show that smokers there made more than 46,000 attempts to quit, and more than a third of those who had tried to give up cigarettes said they had not smoked a month after quitting.

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