Cardboard nurses give free advice

The voice recording is activated as people walk past

Cardboard nurses are asking patients and visitors to wash their hands at hospital wards in Lincolnshire.

The new cut-out nurses contain a recorded message activated by movement as people walk past.

The message asks people to clean their hands on arrival and before leaving the hospital wards.

The nurses will be placed at Lincoln County Hospital, Boston's Pilgrim Hospital, Grantham and District Hospital and Louth County Hospital.

They have been supplied to the United Lincolnshire Hospitals NHS Trust by NHS East Midlands.

The cut-out nurses are already being used to tackle the spread of infections in two Nottinghamshire hospitals in Mansfield and Newark.

Elaine Overton, a senior infection control nurse in Nottinghamshire, said: "The message is getting across. It's about different ways of getting the message across and about changing emphasis so it's not getting boring."