Dear Editor, our precious NHS has taken some knocks over the past few months with reports of unnecessary deaths, poor care, high MRSA infection rates coupled with poor management control at a number of our hospitals in the West Midlands. These reports would be very worrying to anyone about to receive care in our NHS hospitals.

Recently, I was admitted as a day patient at Birmingham’s renowned  Royal Orthopaedic Hospital for surgery on my knee. Given the reported problems in NHS hospitals I paid more attention to how patients were treated on the ward and how staff interacted with them.

I was greeted with a smile by the nurse who would be looking after me prior to my surgery. She completed the admission procedures with cheerful courtesy making me feel relaxed and less apprehensive. I was seen by the anaesthetist and a doctor who were equally professional and cheerful. The theatre staff I met were equally professional.

On return to the ward I was given excellent post-operative care and with easy-to-understand details of what the surgeon had done to my knee.

A further observation I made during the afternoon was how thoroughly the nurses cleaned the beds and surrounding equipment after each patient was discharged, every nook and cranny was sprayed and wiped down. The whole ward was spotless and this is credit to the dedicated hard work of the nurses and domestics in their fight against MRSA.

Alan Last, Kings Norton