A father whose mentally ill daughter jumped to her death inside a hospital is calling for a rethink of the smoking ban.

Genevieve Butler leapt from the fourth floor landing of a London hospital as she was being escorted by a nurse to have a cigarette outside.

Her suicide occurred shortly after she was told she was being discharged from the Chelsea and Westminster Hospital on April 28 last year.

The 28-year-old, who suffered from bi-polar disorder, had been admitted the previous day after taking a paracetamol overdose.

Her father Lord Dunboyne, 56, of Rotherfield, East Sussex, said today: "It was a Bank Holiday weekend and they wanted her out on the Friday night."

Miss Butler was not formally assessed by an "appropriate psychiatrist" despite being deemed by a Crisis Resolution Team as fit for discharge to "home care", an inquest at Westminster Coroners' Court heard last week.

The nurse who accompanied her on the cigarette break was never told two other patients had also leapt to their deaths from the same spot, the inquest heard.

Lord Dunboyne said: "There are two areas of current government policy which need to be examined very carefully.

"One is the use of crisis-resolution teams as gatekeepers to mental health units and the second is the no smoking policy within hospitals and mental health institutions.

"I think these two areas need to be looked at very carefully."

He described his daughter as "a generous bright young lady".