SIR - In reply to

A Woodbridge (December 27) I would like to say that I have indeed spent time in Worcester Hospital as a patient.

That is how I formed my comparison to Selly Oak Hospital. In Worcestershire Royal Hospital, the day after my operation I walked to the nurses' station with a problem. There were three nurses standing around and I waited for a few minutes for them to acknowledge me. They all saw me standing there, and not one of them asked me if I required anything. They totally ignored me as if I were invisible, so I went back to my bed with my problem unsolved.

My mother was a patient at the hospital for several months two years ago.

She was unable to eat by herself and needed feeding. Very often, her food was put on the table by her bed and she could not eat it as she had no help. My husband had cancer and we live only one-and-a-half miles from the hospital. Yet I had to take him to Cheltenham, ill as he was, for treatment. The hospital at Worcester didn't have the facilities. You can imagine we would have to leave home at 8.30am and be at Cheltenham until 5.30pm, as do so many cancer patients in and around Worcester. My husband has since died but it would be good for future cancer sufferers to have their treatment in the hospital that is on their doorstep.

I understand that maybe some wards are better than others and I am really pleased that

A Woodbridge's son is doing so well. But most people - like me - know that Worcestershire Royal Hospital needs some compassion pumped into it, something that among other things Selly Oak has in great supply.

MRS ALISON GRICE,

Broughton Hackett