Naughty Nurse

Recession-weary health industry customers were gladdened today by reports that at least one excessive public-sector wage will be paid no more.

A nurse, Margaret Haywood, has been struck off the register for helping BBC's Panorama to expose neglect of elderly patients at the Royal Sussex Hospital in Brighton.

The panel which found Haywood guilty of misconduct admitted that "conditions on the ward were dreadful", but noted that patients' confidentiality should be kept sacred, especially "in circumstances where their dignity was most compromised" by those entrusted with preserving it.

Haywood claimed that she had raised her concerns with two unnamed managers, "but nothing was really taken on board".

In what many will see as another sign of NHS failure to adapt to market forces, Haywood has been a nurse for twenty years, rather than being Damian Green. It is thought to be at least arguable that many whistleblowers have contributed substantially to their own downfall by not being highly influential and well-heeled Members of Parliament.

Since the Israeli government did not choose to interpret it as an adverse comment on conditions in the occupied territories, the Panorama programme was aired in July 2005.