Reader's letter

When spending six days in York District Hospital recently, I found that standards in every case were high.

The nurses were cheerful, but not "objectionably" so; the doctors were approachable, and welcomed questions about my condition - something which is a modern development, I think, as doctors were formerly a race apart. The sister and the physiotherapists was friendly and efficient. The wards were spotlessly clean.

In short, everything was as one would wish.

Perhaps any other NHS hospital which needs help properly to run itself should organise a "works' outing" to York.

There is no earthly reason why hospitals should be badly run; they merely need good managers, or better still, a matron.

During the late 1930s I spent five years in four different hospitals, and in all of them matron certainly ruled. When matron's inspection was due, the nurses were especially smart, the wards were checked and double-checked, the beds were made up with creases almost sharp enough to cut, and the patients "laid to attention". Her next-in-command, the sister, was similarly very much in charge of one or more wards. If anything at all was found to be at fault, it was put right within the hour. The nurses were just as professional.

Under matron's control, the hospitals ran smoothly, as only one person decided what should be done, how and when. It was never a case of approaching a committee, and ages later getting a decision. Why not bring matron back? York District Hospital would have little to fear, if the standard of ward 33 is typical of all the wards.

Harry Hayes,

Chatsworth Drive,

Haxby,

York.

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