Hospital bedsheet discovered in laundry

A worker at a South London launderette was treated for shock yesterday after discovering a hospital BEDSHEET in laundry from St Crispin's Hospital in Streatham.

Stan Harris, 56, made the grim discovery during his afternoon shift at the Sudfellas Laundromat in Norbiton. The sheet is the second item of NHS linen to have been found in a washbag in the last three months. Amazingly, both blunders occurred at the St Crispin NHS Trust.

Harris told The Rockall Times: "I was fishing through the laundry bags as usual, pulling out miscarried foetuses and body parts when my hand suddenly touched something crisp and smooth. I pulled my hand out and it had no blood or sinew or anything on it. Then, when I looked in the bag, and I saw it — the bedsheet — well I had the shock of my life."

Trust managers have promised a full inquiry into how the bedsheet made it into the laundry, but this is unlikely to satisfy wash loader Harris, who remains on indefinite sick leave and has hired a team of solicitors.

The event has raised fears that hospitals may be cremating dead premature infants rather than throwing them out with the rubbish — a charge angrily refuted by the NHS yesterday.