FIGURES released by the NHS today reveal thousands of children in the North East are being made ill from being exposed to smoke in home and cars on a daily basis.

Doctors are urging parents and carers who smoke to do more to protect their children from toxic, cigarette fumes as a new TV advert in the North East urges smokers to take their cigarette break right outside.

The campaign from Fresh and backed by the British Lung Foundation calls on mums, dads and grandparents who can’t quit to “take 7 steps out”, rather than subject children to a chemical cocktail in the home.

It is part of a wider programme that has so far trained over 300 front line health, local authority and children’s centre staff across the region to give advice to parents on the best ways to protect children from second hand smoke.

Earlier this year the Royal College of Physicians revealed that passive smoking results in 300,000 GP appointments and 10,000 hospital visits for children a year. Estimated figures for the North East released today show:

• 84,000 North East children exposed to second hand smoke in the home
• 800 chest infections for under twos
• 4,900 middle ear infections for 0-16yr-olds.
• 900 new cases of wheeze & asthma for 0-16yr-olds.
• 24 cases of bacterial meningitis
• 12,600 children needing to visit the GP.
• 400 children needing to go to hospital.

Smoke wafting from the end of a cigarette is more poisonous that that inhaled by the smoker because it is not filtered. All smoke contains around 4,000 chemicals such as Tar, Arsenic and benzene, and other less well known chemicals used in batteries, preserving dead bodies, car exhausts and chemical weapons.

Most cigarette smoke is invisible – you can’t be sure where it goes. So even if you open a window, stand at the back door or move to another room, it isn’t enough to keep your children safe.

Newcastle GP Dr Mike Scott, a Partner at Newburn Surgery, said: “GPs often see families where smoking is a normal part of life and where children are suffering from the effects of smoke, including asthma, sore eyes, sickness, low energy and headaches as a result. Sadly this can really damage a child’s quality of life.

“Thankfully most parents are horrified when they realise it is directly related to their smoke and want to do something about it.

“All parents want to protect their children. Even if you cannot quit a good way to protect your child is to keep your smoking outside.”

Ailsa Rutter, director of Fresh, said: “There is massive public support to protect children from the harm of smoking.

“Many parents do already take steps such as opening a window, but this doesn’t stop the toxic poisons contained in smoke filling a room or a car and children breathing it in. These fumes can hang around for hours.

“Most mums and dads want to protect their children and this is all about enabling parents who do smoke to take some really positive steps to do exactly that.”

Dr David Spencer, Consultant in Respiratory Paediatrics, for Newcastle upon Tyne Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, based at the Great North Children’s Hospital, said: “If you smoke around your children, it increases their chances of becoming ill. Every day in my working life I have to tell otherwise loving parents that it is their smoking in the home or the car that is so badly damaging their child’s health.

“Thousands of children are hospitalised every year because of the direct effects of breathing in smoke, and children whose parents smoke around them are far more likely to take up the lethal addiction themselves.”

“This campaign will hopefully encourage people to take positive steps to protect children in a way that presents the facts, doesn’t judge and enables them to do the right thing. Although quitting smoking is obviously the best option, this is much easier said than done and smoking outside of the home is far better than subjecting children to toxic fumes inside the house.”

Dr Robert Allcock, Consultant Chest Physician and Divisional Director for Medicine, Queen Elizabeth Hospital, Gateshead, added:

“If you can smell cigarette smoke, it is harming you. There is no doubt that smoking in the presence of young children and teenagers can cause them health problems. Opening a window isn’t enough to protect them.

“It is worrying that despite the clear link between smoking and illness, some parents still doubt that their smoking will harm their children. This seems to be a particular problem for parents who themselves were brought up in smoky homes.

“But more and more people are starting to recognise the problems that smoking causes for their children, and the health benefits of quitting completely or at least taking their smoking outside and away from children.

“All parents want to protect their children; a good way to protect your child is to keep your smoking outside”

Michelle Foister, 29, a former smoker from Low Fell, said: “Before I quit I would smoke in the kitchen, as I wasn’t fully aware of the dangers of secondhand smoke. All parents need to realise the dangers and I would like to think that had I have been given this advice sooner, I would have quit sooner.

“I used to feel incredibly guilty when my oldest daughter got a bad chest, as my smoking was aggravating it. Now my daughter doesn’t get as many chest infections and if she does she can fight it quicker and get better sooner.

“I would encourage all parents to quit, or at least take it outside. It’s the best thing you’ll ever do, as your children’s health is even more important than your own.”

Mum and dad Tracy Irving and Matt Henderson, both 25, from Northumberland, were horrified when a doctor at Hexham General Hospital told them that their smoking was triggering serious asthma attacks in their oldest daughter Ellie Louise, now four.

Tracy said: “Kids who are subjected to smoke in the home don’t have a choice. We all want to give our children everything we can, but not smoking around them should be part of that.”

“My oldest daughter, Ellie was born with a blood disorder and it was at one of her regular hospital check-ups that I first became aware of the damage my partner and I were doing to her health by smoking.

“I mentioned Ellie’s constant coughs and colds and how she relied on an inhaler to make breathing easier. The doctor she told us about the dangerous chemicals she was breathing in from our smoking. I was pregnant at the time and because of Ellie’s health problems, the guilt was unreal and I told myself there and then, the fact I was pregnant I couldn’t put off quitting any longer.

“My partner Matt and I both decided to quit and since then we have seen massive improvements in the health of our family. I can’t even remember the last time Ellie was unwell and she no longer needs to attend the asthma clinic, which is such a relief.

“Since Lucy was born, she has never lived around smoke and as a result, she’s never had any illnesses related to smoking so her health in general has been far better than Ellie’s was.”

Dame Helena Shovelton, Chief Executive of the British Lung Foundation said: “The British Lung Foundation is pleased to support FRESH’s campaign to raise awareness of the dangers of passive smoke on children particularly amongst parents who smoke.

“There are over 22,000 new cases each year of asthma and wheeze in children, caused as a direct result of second hand smoke. The BLF does encourage adults to think twice before smoking near children as the damage caused to developing lungs cannot be repaired.”

The North East has seen the biggest decline in smoking in England, from 29% of people smoking in 2005 down to 21% of people in 2008 - a total of around 170,000 fewer smokers.

The number of children exposed to smoke is also falling. In 1996, only 6% of children whose parents both smoked lived in a smokefree home, but that had risen to 21% in 2007. And the smokefree law in 2007 has also had an impact. In 2006, 61% of homes were smokefree, which rose to 78% by 2009.

However, smoking remains the single biggest preventable cause of early death, killing 15 people a day and 5,500 a year - in the North East alone. This is more than deaths than from alcohol, drugs, obesity, illegal drugs and road accidents combined.

Evidence shows that those exposed to secondhand smoke are 25 percent more likely to develop cancer or coronary heart disease later in life and children who grow up with parents that smoke are three times more likely to become smokers themselves.

For more information on second hand smoke, click on fresh.take7stepsout.co.uk, or for help quitting phone the NHS Helpline on 0800 022 4 332.