IMAGINE the scene. You’re running a famous and flourishing private hospital – indeed, you call yourself London’s foremost private hospital. Your patron is the Queen. You boast of the highest possible standards, employing the very best nursing and medical staff.

When it comes to care, money is presumably no object.

The world’s most famous motherto- be is your patient. Night and day, the world’s press is camped on the doorstep, all of them desperate for a snippet of news, however insignificant.

So who do you get to answer the phones in the face of this media onslaught?

A nurse whose first language isn’t even English...

How irresponsible is that?

Even if hospital managers didn’t think of hoaxes, surely they realised that there would be a huge upsurge in calls and that there are better places for a nurse than answering the phones.

I loathe hoaxes and practical jokes, live in dread of April Fool’s Day and never found Ali G remotely funny, so I’m absolutely no defender of pranksters. (Or “brainless bullies”, as I prefer to call them...). But is it fair that the two Australian broadcasters should bear all the responsibility for the death of nurse Jacintha Saldhana?

The broadcasters were guilty of thoughtlessness, of being young and daft. Their hoax call, ridiculous as it was, had been sanctioned by their bosses. Until Jacintha’s death, a lot of people thought it was a great joke.

Ho, ho, ho.

But the King Edward VII Hospital for Officers is a proper grown-up institution.

It has a duty of care not just to its patients, but also to its staff. Leaving Jacintha Saldhana to answer the phones in those circumstances was breathtakingly stupid and irresponsible.

Laying blame is pointless now but lessons should be learned. If nothing else, King Edward VII hospital needs a proper 24-hour telephone reception.

If they want to know how it’s done, maybe they should ask that nice man from Claridges.