Stafford nurses rap after mock fight

Two nursing staff at Stafford Hospital carried out a mock fight just yards from seriously ill patients and then another posted the pictures onto the Internet.

The incident involved the uniformed staff throwing yoghurt and juice over each other as well as a build-up drink called Ensure, which is given to malnourished patients.

The pictures were taken by staff nurse Sam Parkes and show staff nurse Victoria Cooper getting a soaking from healthcare assistant Kim Pointon in the hospital's emergency assessment unit, now renamed the Acute Medical Unit.

It's believed the mock fight was part of celebrations for Victoria Cooper, who was leaving the hospital to work in the private sector.

Images of their actions were then posted onto the social networking site Facebook which was seen by a patient's relative who downloaded the pictures and a copy of the Facebook page and passed them to campaign group Cure the NHS.

It is not known if the staff were on duty at the time of the incident, but they were clearly uniformed and on hospital grounds.

t is thought the incident took place before December last year and bosses at the hospital insist a full investigation and "appropriate action" has been taken.

Julie Bailey, from Cure the NHS, said: "We were contacted by a relative who had lost someone at the hospital and who had found these pictures on the internet.

"They downloaded them and gave it to us. In my opinion this is unprofessional behaviour. This shouldn't be going on in a hospital. They were throwing around Ensure and the irony is that some of our relatives were being assessed for Ensure and were not being given it.

"I believe this should not have happened and it shouldn't have been put up on Facebook."

Antony Sumara, chief executive of Mid Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust, claimed the hospital had taken action after being alerted to the pictures.

He said: "We will not tolerate unprofessional behaviour by any of our staff. As soon as we were made aware of the photos in December 2009 we launched an investigation and appropriate action was taken.

"The Facebook content was removed immediately and we issued a reminder to all our staff about the appropriate use of social networking sites."

The trust refused to state what action had been taken against staff due to Data Protection rules.

The Emergency Assessment Unit was one of the wards heavily criticised in the Healthcare Commission report, which revealed appalling levels of care across the hospital.