V-signs and bared bottoms at superbug hospital trust

A hospital trust has been forced to apologise after photographs of a grinning nurse giving a V-sign over a patient during surgery were published online.

A series of pictures on Facebook also showed staff pointing their bottoms at the camera and a nurse cleaning a pool of blood off an operating theatre floor using only a piece of plastic.

The photographs were taken in 2006 at the height of an outbreak of the "superbug" Clostridium difficile which killed at least 90 patients in hospitals run by the Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells NHS Trust - the worst such incident in NHS history.

A trust spokesman said: "The behaviour of the member of staff during the operation and that of the person taking the photograph is clearly unacceptable and completely unprofessional.

"If one hadn't left the trust and the other retired some years ago they would now be facing disciplinary action.

"We have reminded all staff in no uncertain terms that this type of behaviour is absolutely unacceptable."