YOU are a lucky person if you have not being cared for by doctor Steve Owen.

It's not that there's anything wrong with him. He's a friendly and experienced consultant at Warrington Hospital.

It's that 80 per cent of his cancer patients have no chance of survival. And 85 per cent of them die within 12 months.

Dr Owen deals with the effects of smoking every day and the majority of time he can only make people's deaths as comfortable as possible.

"I get very sad because you literally see the carnage smoking causes," he told the Warrington Guardian.

"If you get it it's devastating for the patient and for their family. That's what strikes me when I see them."

Dr Owen gives talks on the dangers of smoking. His computer screen flashed up with ominous statistics from his slide show.

Out of 1,000 smokers, one will be murdered, six will die in traffic accidents, and 500 will die from smoking - 250 prematurely.

A smoker's life expectancy drops by 10 years. 10 years after stopping smoking the risk of lung cancer is only one third to one half that of a smoker.

Perhaps the most disturbing image he had was of hundreds of cigarette butts stubbed out by patients in the hospital grounds outside the heart unit.

Dr Owen, a consultant physician in respiratory medicine who has been at Warrington for the past 12 years, is naturally in favour of the workplace smoking ban and the hospital's smoking ban on it's grounds.

In his job he has to tell scared people they are going to die - and they realise smoking has killed them.

"You get a lot of experience at breaking the news but it never really gets any easier."

He added: "Young people are the smokers of the future. We need to stop them smoking earlier rather than stop them when it's too late."

gdunning@guardiangrp.co.uk