Elderly people are always going to make up a large proportion of people occupying hospital beds in Sussex.

It's tempting for managers, faced with constant cost-cutting, not to give them the high priority of other, younger patients.

But that's not the position at Brighton General and the Royal Sussex County Hospital where two nurses have been assigned to improve the lot of elderly patients.

Ruth Bailey and Caroline Davies are trying to find ways of making their hospital stays as comfortable and stress free as possible.

Some of the measures are simply things such as putting in large clocks and calendars for patients who have lost track of time.

Others are harder and more long-term but these two nurses are already making progress which has been notified and appreciated by many elderly admirers.