Tuesday, July 6, 2010

Well that's a novel use of the NHS

There are some things you see when you trawl various news items to see if there's anything worth blogging about that cause you to wonder.

BBC.
A "big budget" pornographic film was shot in a London hospital when it hired out one of its wards to a film company.
The movie generated "substantial income" for the hospital, Conservative MP Penny Mordaunt said.
Ms Mordaunt, Portsmouth North MP, was speaking during a House of Commons debate on improving transparency in government accounting, on Monday.
NHS Kensington and Chelsea said the filming occurred before 2002 when the primary care trust (PCT) formed.
"When I was director of Kensington and Chelsea Council, I discovered that one of our local hospitals was hiring out one of its closed - but fully-equipped - wards to a film company to use as a film set," Ms Mordaunt said.
"To add insult to injury, the movie was a pornographic one.
"Although I cannot claim to have seen the final picture - as I understand, these things are no longer claimable on parliamentary expenses - it was a big-budget affair and generated substantial income for the hospital."
"But apart from cheering up a few of the in-patients, it cannot be said to be contributing to the objectives of the primary care trust."
NHS Kensington and Chelsea said: "We can confirm this incident occurred some time prior to 2002 under a predecessor organisation's management and prior to the formation of PCTs."
OK it's not exactly what you expect to find when looking in a "Your NHS" leaflet, but as the ward was closed and the income generated was substantial and no patients were hurt in the filming of said movie (or animals or children possibly). Hospitals are always scratting around for cash, someone has to keep the Doctors and Nurses pay packets full when the rest of the budget has to go towards keeping the administration team monitoring diversity and correlating all the forms they make you fill in.
So, I can't really see what all the fuss is about other than some MP having a bitch about societies declining morals, no it cannot be said to be directly contributing to the objectives of the primary care trust, but it made the hospital money which could have contributed to the objectives of the primary care trust had the primary care trust existed at the time, which it didn't.
Now I know some people have a problem with porn, however it isn't suddenly going to go away because some people disapprove, so if hospitals or other public service buildings are offered a lot of cash to film in their premises, then I really don't see what the problem is, so long as the filming doesn't interfere with the primary function of the hospital. No doubt if it had been a spy film or an action adventure Ms Mordaunt would have no objection, but because it's porn and therefore exploitative we have a hypocritical "think of the cheeldren" moment and faux outrage that a hospital is used for a porn film, though any trip through the darker parts of the internet would have shown you that doctors and nurses have a fascination effect in porn. (I'm told) and indeed in adult "fun" too no matter the circumstances. You can even go to a fancy dress shop and hire a naughty nurse outfit should you so desire, though they do tend to look better on women ;-)
So, this whole thing passed the libertarian test of harming no-one, but as we all know most politicians are about control, not libertarianism.

Still as Guido points out, porn in government can still bring down the high and mighty.

3 annotations:

Macheath said...

I can't help wondering if there were genuine staff and patients in the surrounding wards.

The idea of a genuine patient or visitor opening the wrong door is simply priceless - in fact, perhaps that's the film they should have made.

The Filthy Engineer said...

I presume that they had enough Black, One legged, Lesbians in the film to keep the diversity outreach co-0rdinator happy.

English Pensioner said...

Our Parish Church and graveyard are frequently used for filming; no porn as far as I know, but there have been several murders! No doubt it helped towards the cost of the recent major roofing repairs. What other church has appeared in Morse, Lewis and Midsomer Murders?