It cannot have made very comfortable reading for those who might be facing a spell in hospital.

The report from the nurses' conference in Bournemouth which has been getting headline coverage says openly what many of us already knew - that hospitals are not the wonderful, shiny, brilliantly polished places so beloved of the TV soaps like ER and Casualty.

When you are confronted with the nurses themselves saying that cleaning standards are unacceptable it is time to start taking some notice. Those of us old enough to remember the matron of yesteryear and the terror she inspired as she stalked the wards on her daily rounds will also remember the standards she expected from her nurses.

How many of you remember the saving of damp tea leaves to be spread on the ward floor to damp down the dust before careful sweeping? Probably not the most hygienic method of doing things, but infinitely better than having little dustballs rolling around the foot of your bed which simply get moved from A to B, carrying a trail of dead skin scales with them.

Those scales can contain the deadly bug MRSA, which is antibiotic resistant and is particularly dangerous to older patients who often have not got the resistance to fight it.

Of course, it is quite easy to put the deterioration of cleaning standards down to the contracting out of the services but there are other things which stem from a general lowering of what used to be thought of as the normal requirements of hospital life.

Nurses never wore uniform when out in the street, their hair was always under a cap which actually covered the head, not a frilly fashion statement or, worse still as so often these days, none at all.

I fully expect some Argus readers to write in saying I am impossibly old-fashioned, but in reply I would say that in those days there were no magical drugs such as antibiotics and there were far fewer cross infections. In fact they were regarded as something of a disgrace when they did occur.

If the nurses are now to have some control over how part of their budget is to be spent that can only be a good thing. Ward Sisters are at the sharp end. They know where their needs lie and should be able to order what is required for the smooth running of the ward.

The worry is that they may be so bogged down in the inevitable 25 forms to be filled in that they will have no time for the proper supervision of their nurses! But the ball is now firmly in their court and all eyes will now be on the lookout for results.

It has to be said that nurses have a very difficult row to hoe these days and the important thing is that it is the nurses who are saying they are disturbed by the falling standards, not some distant Government Minister. For once it looks as though the powers that be are listening to the right people.

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.