Messy Business

Hospitaldr.co.uk, like all ‘publications’, has an editorial strategy. In a nutshell, it’s to provide hospital doctors with interesting, timely and relevant information. And, in the words of Robbie Williams, we also seek to entertain you…which brings me neatly to the Daily Mail’s editorial strategy.

Ok, ok, it might not actually be up on the wall in Paul Dacre’s office, but once you read the Victoria Line all the paper’s animosity towards the medical and social work professions falls into place.

I’m wondering whether I should adapt it for my lowly site (after all, it’s led to Dacre reportedly earning £1.65m a year). I spent several years of my 20s trying to make progress on the Northern Line during rush hour, with little success. On my map, I’d definitely replace Angel, Old Street and Bank with Revalidation, the NHS IT Programme and GP commissioning…

Oh dear, a smutty theme appears to be developing in this column.

First hospitals start renting out rooms for the filming of, ahem, adult entertainment.

Then they go and spend loads of money on building a room dedicated to enhancing the production of, ahem, sperm samples.

The Liverpool Women’s NHS Foundation Trust has spent £7,500 on developing a room which aids the process and includes a cool £500 on porn films.

Needless to say it has The Sun, in all its hypocrisy, extremely agitated.

Maybe the hospital should have taken a leaf out of the Royal Cornwall’s (less smutty) book, which spends just £5 a year on a couple of gentlemen’s magazines.

You’d have thought there was enough ‘bull’ being spoken in the NHS at the moment, particularly during power point presentations with headings like ‘Making efficiencies’ and ‘New commissioning structures’.

But that’s nothing compared to Kent and Canterbury Hospital.

Just when everyone is getting carried away that the white paper Liberating the Nash is taking us in a fresh and dynamic direction its author - the health secretary - went and cracked under some tough questioning from a fictional character.

Back to the drawing board then…

Let’s hope our cash strapped trusts don’t resort to some of the more desperate measures deployed in the past to raise a few quid.

Tory MP Penny Mordaunt revealed, during a debate in the House of Commons on transparent accounting, that when she was the director of Kensington and Chelsea Council one the local hospitals hired out a closed - but fully equipped ward - as a film set.

What type of film did they shoot? Well, let’s just say the ‘nurses’ were wearing latex uniforms, the ‘doctors’ had names like Butch and the cameraman focused on the many ‘invasive procedures’.

Mordaunt explained “Although I cannot claim to have seen the final picture - as I understand, these things are no longer claimable on parliamentary expenses - it was a big-budget affair and generated substantial income for the hospital.

“But apart from cheering up a few of the in-patients, it cannot be said to be contributing to the objectives of the primary care trust.”

Oh I don’t know, there are plenty of staff who are about to be shafted by their trusts…

I’m nearly 40 and struggling to come to terms with it.

My hair has all but disappeared and my knees ache, particularly when I get up in the morning. It’s all starting to feel a bit like a slippy slope.

But, if Dutch research is anything to go by, being in your 40s and 50s can be a decidedly frisky experience. One in nine patients attending the Dutch STD clinics involved in the study proved to swingers with an average age of 43.

While the combined rates of chlamydia and gonorrhea were just under 5% in female prostitutes, they were over 10% among older swingers.

Apparently it’s hard to target the group with health services, unlike say gay men, because it’s a hidden - though clearly growing - culture.

And there was I thinking I’d just be playing a bit more golf…

Mind your language. That’s the message from Gary Walker’s case. Who he? He’s the former chief executive of United Lincolnshire Hospitals Trust, who was dismissed back in February.

The trust’s given reason for dismissing Mr Walker was that he swore in meetings, but he claims he was sacked for putting patients before targets. He has launched a claim for unfair dismissal.

All health professionals clearly need to mind their Ps and Qs. Doctors4Justice has dug out a portentous BMJ study from 1999 which monitored surgeons’ swearing in theatre.

Orthopaedic surgeons predictably won hands down (16.5 swear words within an eight hour shift). Then it was general surgeons, gynaecologists, urologists and lastly - and definitely most politely - ENT surgeons.

Gary went on stand against health minister Gillian Merron in her Lincoln seat in the election as an independent. At the time he said: “Under the current government the NHS has become obsessed with targets and has created a culture of fear.”

Unfortunately for Gary he won just 222 votes and fell short of the 2% of the vote required to get his deposit back. Oh feck, he said (probably). 

By way of consolation, Merron lost her seat to Conservative candidate Karl McCartney, who won by 1,058 votes.