My mother, who used to be a nurse, and went through training in the 70s, regularly comments on the quality of nursing care at our local hospital. When my grandmother fell ill recently her stay in hospital was a litany of poor quality of care, needless to say we were not surprised by that C4 documentary about nursing care. She is broadly of the opinion that matrons would benefit standards. Various problems include: Failure to change bedding properly ignorance of proper mouthcare for a stroke patient just 'plonking' meals down in front of patients and taking them away when they didn't eat failure to check dressings following an operation failure to ensure adeqate hygeine. 1) Nurses today seem to think that cleaning up after patients is somehow below them - instead delegating them to HCAs. 2) They seem to spend most of their time being 'mini-doctors' rather than actual nurses 3) Nurses today seem to spend far too much time sitting around, she recalls spending entire shifts standing because there was no 'spare time'. The channel 4 documentary showed nurses on duty but sitting around on the phone, or drinking tea, ignoring patients, while there were clearly things they could be getting on with. When she was a nurse she spent all day on her feet, there was always something to do, Matrons had a dedicated 'domestic' cleaner who could be called to clean immediately any spillage or problem. The 'foreman' role of the Matron seems to be missing, ensuring that the junior nurses are working Oh, and the abandonment of 'non touch technique' for handling patients, nowadays nurses seem to just rinse their hands and then grab the patient. Ironically, the outpatients care is excellent. End Rant