Hospital under fire for spending £18,000 on ‘urban and scenic’ pictures

Last week it was hand washing. This week, the simple but oh-so-easy-to-ridicule plan for saving the battered NHS involves photographs.

After a coroner said proper use of soap and water would kill off superbugs, a London hospital came under fire for spending £18,000 on ‘urban and scenic’ pictures – while cutting up to 100 jobs.

Apparently, critically ill patients would rather have a newly qualified nurse on the ward than a couple of tastefully framed black-and-white snaps.

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Being a tad more cultured than average, Guru pondered this a bit further. What could the photos be of to justify their expensive price tag, he wondered? Perhaps they show nurses washing their hands, to remind them of the critical need for this activity. Possibly there is a step-by-step guide of how to do this correctly.

If Guru was in hospital, however, nearing his dying day, and there was no money to clean the ward or pay for nurses, then it would not be photos of cleanliness he would be interested in. Quite the opposite, in fact. After all, £18,000 could easily be used to fund the ‘artful’ photography of a few hundred newly qualified ‘nurses’.