A hospital manager, Tom Hurst(1915-1995), founded the International Network Towards Smoke-Free Hospitals in 1991. He did so because he realised that it was not only in Great Britain that hospitals needed to help patients and staff who wanted to give up smoking and to provide a healthy, smoke-free atmosphere for all.

Tom was Secretary of the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh, a major Scottish hospital, was President of Institute of Hospital Administrators and an active member of the International Hospitals Federation. He had been a heavy smoker, until a surgeon, at a hospital where he worked, made him watch an operation on a young journalist and showed Tom what happened to a lung as a result of excessive smoking.