title: Fighting the scourge of metal theft.
abstract: Last December one acute hospital in south Wales, the University Hospital Llandough near Cardiff, was forced to cancel eight operations, with 81 patients affected in total, after thieves stole copper cabling from a back-up generator. HEJ editor, Jonathan Baillie, reports on the growing theft of cabling, pipework, and other vital supply infrastructure, from the healthcare estate, and asks senior estates personnel what lessons have been learned that might be useful in combating this lucrative, opportunistic, and also potentially highly dangerous, practice, in the future.
authors.forename: Jonathan
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Baillie
mesh_terms: D006779:Hospitals, Public; D008670:Metals; D012637:Security Measures / Q000458:organization & administration; D013800:Theft / Q000517:prevention & control*; D006113:United Kingdom
chemical_list: D008670:Metals