London hospital hosted grumble flick shoot

A Conservative MP has revealed that a Kensington and Chelsea hospital hired out one of its wards for the shooting of a "big budget" porno, the BBC reports.

Penny Mordaunt, member for Portsmouth North, informed fellow parliamentarians of the incident during a Commons debate yesterday on "improving transparency in government accounting".

Mordaunt said of the shoot, which apparently took place sometime before 2002: "When I was director of Kensington and Chelsea Council, I discovered that one of our local hospitals was hiring out one of its closed - but fully-equipped wards - to a film company to use as a film set. To add insult to injury, the movie was a pornographic one."

She quipped: "Although I cannot claim to have seen the final picture - as I understand, these things are no longer claimable on parliamentary expenses - it was a big-budget affair and generated substantial income for the hospital.

"But apart from cheering up a few of the in-patients, it cannot be said to be contributing to the objectives of the primary care trust."

In fact, the porn movie shoot actually happened before the PCT was formed, according to NHS Kensington and Chelsea. Placing the blame firmly on the doorstep of previous management, it said: "We can confirm this incident occurred some time prior to 2002 under a predecessor organisation's management and prior to the formation of PCTs."

Sadly, Mordaunt did not provide the name of the film in question, so we're unable to confirm the size of its budget, just how fully-equipped the ward was and to what degree it cheered in-patients. ®