Britannia Hospital

The Royal College of Nursing has launched a petition in support of the nurse who was struck off the register for the heinous crime of blowing the whistle on the Royal Sussex Hospital's ill-treatment of elderly patients. The Nursing and Midwifery Council admitted that the problems were of an "exceptionally serious nature", but decided that their airing on the BBC's Panorama was a more serious problem still. The petition has attracted almost forty thousand signatures, more than two thirds of the number on the one asking the Glorious Successor to resign; not unlike the legislative body of which Gordon is the hollow head, the Nursing and Midwifery Council has "lost the confidence" of those whose behaviour it is supposed to regulate. Even the visionary Minister for Health Industry Privatisation, Ben Bradshaw, said that the penalty was "unduly harsh", which is at least a step on the path to the sanity-oriented viewpoint that no penalty should have been imposed. As one would expect, none of the managers at the Royal Sussex Hospital have been disciplined; presumably because any hint of sanctions would cause the brightest and best in our health service to flee abroad in search of less regulated shores.