I find it very alarming that more dirty hospitals are being discovered every day. Why is this happening when 20 to 30 years ago our hospitals were very clean?

Well because of meeting budget targets Hospital Trusts employ cont-ract cleaners and the firm operates the business on a shoestring budget.

I was in hospital last May and cleaners were only allotted a certain time per job than had to move on to another one irrespective of whether they had finished the first job or not.

I am not blaming the cleaning staff but under such time pressure some jobs are only half done.

In the old days cleaning staff were employed by the hospital and under direct supervision of a Matron.

Many things are better today than they were in the old days unfortunately keeping our hospitals clean does not appear to be one of them.

Councillor D.Pearson (via email)