a hospital bed !!

Doctors should stop wearing ties and keep work clothes separate from the rest of their wardrobe to prevent the spread of potentially lethal superbugs including MRSA, their leading body said today.
The British Medical Association (BMA) said doctors' ties were "rarely cleaned", often contaminated with bacteria and viruses, and posed a risk of spreading serious hospital-acquired infections because they were regularly handled.
The BMA advised doctors to ditch ties and other "functionless" clothing and take special care to thoroughly clean the dirtiest parts of clothes, such as pockets and cuffs, which could re-contaminate their hands after washing.
A guide written by the BMA's board of science advised doctors to keep their work clothes "thoroughly laundered" and separate from the rest of their wardrobe. It also advised them to avoid leaving hospital during working hours and to change clothes if they did, to reduce the risk of bringing superbugs from the community back into the wards.
The guide said there was no single solution to the "dramatic" rise of healthcare associated infections (HCAIs), which contribute to the deaths of around 5,000 people in the UK every year and cost the NHS up to £1bn annually. HCAIs include both hospital-acquired infections, which develop 48 hours or more after admission to a hospital, and community-acquired infections, which refer to any infection from which a patient is suffering when they come to hospital or which develop within the first 48 hours of admission.
But the BMA warned that government targets to cut waiting lists and improve productivity were undermining efforts by NHS staff to tackle HCAIs. It said rising patient turnover led to higher bed occupancy, which meant there was nowhere to isolate infected patients.
Increasing pressure on doctors' time also contributed to them sometimes failing to wash their hands - a situation aggravated by a lack of sinks in some wards.
The guide also criticised the decline in standards of hospital cleanliness since cleaning services were contracted out to the private sector in the 1980s. It noted that the number of NHS cleaners fell from 100,000 to 55,000 in 20 years.
But the BMA said patients and hospital visitors, as well as NHS staff, all needed to change their behaviour to cut the spread of infections. It called for patients to stop asking for antibiotics for trivial infections such as colds, and to ensure they completed a prescription, so their infection did not become resistant to the drugs.
Dr Vivienne Nathanson, the BMA's head of ethics and science, said: "It is unlikely that any health service will ever be completely free of HCAIs but there is a lot more that doctors, nurses, cleaners, patients and their visitors could be doing to reduce infections spreading - the fact is around 15% to 30% of HCAIs are preventable. "
While solutions such as hand-washing sounded simple, there were barriers to compliance, Dr Nathanson said.
"One of the major barriers to doctors following these guidelines is time and the pressure to treat patients and meet targets. Another can be the layout of clinical areas and access to washing facilities."
In England, 300,000 patients acquire infections in hospitals every year and at any given time some 9% of hospital patients are infected with an HCAI. The BMA said a 15% reduction in HCAIs would free up around £150m a year for the NHS.
The latest MRSA figures show there were 3,580 cases of MRSA bloodstream infections reported in England between April and September 2005 - 55 more than in the same period the previous year.