"NHS waste of equipment"

I had my hip replaced which was done in chorley hospital, Lancashire. The whole procedure from beginning to end was wonderful, the hospital is immaculately clean, the staff helpful and pleasantly polite and courteous.

The Surgeon was amazing and also had a sense of humour! ! In a word and I feel well and am repairing well.

What I hated was being told that the expensive and very reusable equipment that I was given on prescription, with the exception of the hospital chair, which of all was hardest to clean should be taken to the tip as it was too expensive to steralise it and put is back into circulation.

The price of the stuff to go to the tip was £200 there are approximately 72, 000 hip operations done on the NHS each year and that is not counting the ones done privately who are also entitled to the same equipment on prescription.

I calculate the waste to be 14. 5 million just on the NHS ops and that is based on the minium equipment which I received as it was all I required.

I find it very hard to believe that it would take anywhere near that amount to cleanse and put back into use this equipment, there is also the issue of throwing away perfectly good products in a time when we are begging people to recycle.

I offered my equipment to a local care home and they snapped my hand off and in fact another care manager also asked if they could have it, I scrubbed, bleached and made sure it was fit for use even though I knew they would do that again and delivered it to them.

My point/question is that in a time when the NHS has their backs to the wall how can they justify this waste.