HERE we go again, yet another report by the Care Quality Commission on the state of care in our hospitals. Unannounced visits seem to be catching these people out whereas announced visits were sanitised to gloss over gross mismanagement.

Who are the people in our society who are most vulnerable? Our old folk. How many more reports will we have to endure before someone is found who is accountable for this gross negligence.

People have a right to be treated with dignity, kindness and compassion especially the vulnerable.

Hospital managers have a legal duty to ensure vulnerable people in their care are cared for in a dignified and humane way. To be left unattended, hungry, soiled and in pain, for most of us is heart breaking. The cuts that we have to endure should not compromise these fundamental rights to good care.

Nurses should turn whistle blower and report poor standards to the health authorities.

I am sure there are nurses who would love to do this, but at what cost to themselves and their careers and by the way who is listening? Obviously not the local managers and authorities who have the responsibility for standards.

Politicians, for as long as I can remember, have 'talked and talked' about the improvements they would introduce to the Health Service. Billions upon billions of pounds have been thrown at it in the past and will continue to be thrown at it, but where are the promised improvements to care?

Generally, hospitals are well equipped to serve the needs of the patients. It seems to be that people need direction and training that produces the standards of care that we expect. The tick box culture adopted to process all things does not work .

The improvements will come when senior managers are made accountable to the users and their jobs and inflated salaries are vulnerable to scrutiny.

I am sure there is no easy solution to the problems but if we were to start by getting the fundamentals right the rest will follow. "Patients first" should be the banner under which everybody in the Health Service should subscribes and work towards.

It has to be said that not all hospitals are run so badly as the ones reported. So why are they not held up as beacons of good practice that could and should be copied.

Let's look forward to the day that these reports praise the care of hospital patients and 'Patient First' is an accepted norm in the Health Service.

– Robert Harris, Berry Hill (returned).