The story behind Cameron's photo-op at Guy's Hospital

We've all seen the above clip. An angry manager walks in on Cameron and Clegg cooing at a patient in Guy's Hospital, Southwark, London and tells the reporters to leave as they are wearing ties.

As Max Pemberton reports in the Daily Telegraph, that's not the full story.

The incident was seen as a victory for the man on the street over the slick No 10 machine – until news broke yesterday that Nunn is now mysteriously not at work. The press department at Guy's and St Thomas's NHS Foundation Trust has insisted that he is on leave for an undisclosed period, not suspended, but refuses to comment further.

The trust has issued warnings to its staff not to talk to any members of the press about the matter, which in itself seems a peculiar intervention. However, several friends who work in orthopaedics have privately expressed concern that Guy's Hospital was deeply angered by Nunn's actions, and are trying to oust him from his job. They are convinced that he has been suspended in all but name.

It is also worth noting Pemberton's comments on the "bare below the elbows" policy that Nunn refers to. I will quote a large majority of it as it is so important.

There is not a shred of evidence to show that the policy of "bare below the elbows" reduces the spread of infection in any way. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that it's actively dangerous, because it diverts attention from the real problems.

Nunn himself has been critical of the policy, not least on the letters page of this newspaper. Indeed, his outburst can be seen as an attempt to highlight the utter hypocrisy and lunacy surrounding infection control in the NHS.

Both the previous administration and the present one know that the public is concerned about hospital infection rates. They must be seen to be doing something. But all the research shows that the single biggest factor in the spread of hospital-acquired infections, such as MRSA and C. difficile, is bed occupancy rate. The quicker the turnaround in hospitals, and the more pressure on bed space, the more infections there are.

Scandalously, this link was emphasised six years ago, in a report funded by the Department of Health. Yet it was ignored by Labour because it did not fit in with its new NHS agenda of closing hospitals, introducing PFI hospitals (which typically have 30 per cent fewer beds) and "streamlining" services.

These policies have left us with some of the highest bed occupancy rates in the developed world, with hospitals often running at over 100 per cent capacity. It's this that is causing the spread of hospital-acquired infections, not shirtsleeves or watches...

Read more at the Daily Telegraph.