I'm fairly ambivalent about the story. While I dislike the over-protective control freakery we are being subjected to at the moment, neither would I like to be told that I had a terminal degenerative illness by someone whose socks were playing Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer. The Trust's Director of Clinical Care said they would adopt a common sense approach, and if that is the case, I don't see a particular problem with it.

The trouble with expecting people to make up their own minds about what is professional dress, is that people's ideas of that can vary wildly. Then as soon as guidelines are given, people become outraged about what they can't wear, even though they had no intention of doing so.