The stolen hospital equipment scandal

If your local high street fashion emporium can sound an alarm when someone tries to bag a £25 pair of jeans without paying, then why on earth can’t your local hospital stop someone walking out with anything from a box full of Botox injections to a £150,000 endoscope machine? This, in effect, is the question being asked by Channel 4 News, after it did a bit of digging with the help of a Freedom of Information Act survey that showed that tens of millions of pounds worth of medical equipment is being stolen from NHS trusts every year. The scale of the losses admitted is truly extraordinary, covering the entire spectrum from opportunistic walk-in thieves bagging a likely looking bit of kit to highly organised gangs stealing specialist items to order.