Hospital spends £18k on photos (From Surrey Comet)

Hospital spends £18k on photos

6:56am Thursday 10th May 2007

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Kingston Hospital is splashing out £18,000 on photographs to line the walls of its new surgical centre, to the anger of hospital staff who expect millions of pounds of budget cuts in the year ahead.

The hospital's new surgical centre, previously known as Phase 5, is due to be opened this summer. It is funded by a £34million Private Finance Initiative (PFI) where a private company has paid for the building, and the hospital leases it back over a period of 30 years.

“Whatever budget it comes out of, it is all Kingston Hospital’s money. It might not be much of £34million but to us it is a huge amount of money – it is a salary for a whole year.”

Unison representative Nora Pearce

The news that £18,000 of the budget is to be spent on photographs of local places and people was leaked to pressure group London Health Emergency (LHE) on Friday. It published details of an email between hospital board members discussing an art group working party and the commissioning of photographs.

Geoff Martin from LHE said: "It is the same cost as a nurse's annual salary. I think it is outrageous they should spend so much on some arty photographs when the Primary Care Trust could be levying £4million of cuts on Kingston Hospital this year."

Although Kingston Hospital's budget is currently in surplus, bosses warned of redundancies at Christmas and had to reduce posts by 20 because of the £22million financial crisis of its healthcare commissioner, Kingston Primary Care Trust.

Unison representative and midwife Nora Pearce said it was a "kick in the teeth" when they are refused extra staff.

She said: "Whatever budget it comes out of, it is all Kingston Hospital's money. It might not be much of £34million but to us it is a huge amount of money - it is a salary for a whole year."

The Surrey Comet has offered the hospital free use of its photographic archives to furnish the new centre with views of Kingston. We are waiting for a response.

Instead of paying for photographs, Mr Martin and Mrs Pearce suggested using art submissions from hospital staff, local schools, colleges or residents as a cheap way of engaging the community.

A spokeswoman for Kingston Hospital said it is seeking commercial sponsorship for the photography, and added that the Department of Health advises hospitals to spend one per cent of capital budgets on art.

She said: "Research proves that the environment is very important to a patient's recovery. As our PFI is a £34million project then we believe £18,000 is an investment worth making to provide an environment that speeds the recovery of our patients."

Mrs Pearce said: "I am sure research shows patients recover better when wards are well staffed."

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