I spent four nights just before Christmas in the Royal Sussex County Hospital, Brighton, having fractured a leg.

The operations and essential care were adequate. However, 80 per cent of the nursing staff were about 18-22 years of age.

The nurses used to come round with the medication and then disappear for two-and-a-half hours. Two or three nurses who were older were more caring and had time for a little chat and joke.

The food was cold, there was very little of it, everything looked like mince and it all had a hospital taste, as did the coffee.

In my experience, the hospital gives the minimum, not the optimum, of care one would expect in 2003.

I suspect it started with cost-cutting Margaret Thatcher and continues with the new Thatcher, Tony "Don't I just love myself" Blair.

-Malcolm Martindale, Swanborough Drive, Brighton