Painting the ward blue and other dubious ways to beat the recession

Beyond the Bedpan would love to be able to cover some serious topics. We’re very intelligent you know: we like opera and olives and we understand the offside rule. But we could forgive you for thinking that this column is obsessed with sex. If it’s not staff having sex in the pharmacy, it’s sexy nurses in Ann Summers outfits. They make it so easy for us.

So you’ll understand that we couldn’t ignore the news this week that a “big budget” porn movie was shot in a London hospital. This was met with a strange mix of cries of horror and giggles of amusement. Some praised the imagination of the trust and wondered whether there might be more empty wards available to the highest bidder. With pay freezes and job losses looming, isn’t looking for some extra income a sensible thing to do?

Some of you were not amused: “We are going back to the dark ages when prostitutes and alcoholics were nurses.” Worrying stuff indeed.

Beyond the Bedpan can understand the concern, but surely this is a harmless way of making some extra money for a cash-strapped organisation? Or is it encouraging the public to think of nurses in the wrong way? With nurses trying so hard to promote a professional image of nursing, in the face of years of stereotyping, are NHS managers foiling the plan?

We always enjoy reading all your comments, but this week the ones that had Beyond the Bedpan sniggering into our chardonnay weren’t on Nursingtimes.net but on our sister site, HSJ.co.uk. So we’ll let them have the last word…

“Clearly this was a case of any willing provider”

“Or a case of top down targets…?”

“Or bottom up engagement?”

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