Hospital blasted over plans to give patients iPads

A NHS trust has been criticised for a plan to install iPads into operating theatres, allowing patients to watch movies, play chess or check their emails while being operated on.

The pilot scheme, which could be rolled out across 46 operating theatres in the Oxford University Hospitals NHS Trust, could cost taxpayers more than £18,000 if funded by the NHS.

In a pilot trial, patients at Nuffield Orthopaedic Centre in Oxford have watched their favourite films, surfed the net and checked their emails during 10 hour local anaesthetic surgeries.

The pilot scheme is hoped to help distract people from often lengthy regional anaesthetic surgery, which requires absolute stillness.

However, Dia Chakravarty, political director at The Taxpayers' Alliance, said: 'Taxpayers will wonder if this really is the best use of their money when necessary savings are having to be made across the public sector.

'People expect their taxes to pay for doctors and cancer drugs.

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Originally published in the DailyMail