Sorry spaw, I must learn to slow down with my reading and managed to miss your first post completely. If I had head it, I would have been agreeing with you rather than phrasing my post the way I did. And yes, there are many others who do a valuable job.

Jeri, my mother often felt that the level of care had decreased over the years and she was a big believer that simple kindness played an important part in the healing process. Although cuts and increased effieincy were issuse, the didn't think that was the sole cause. She felt that the focus on the training of nurses had switched too far towards medical traing at the expense of basic care. I think that the traning had switched more to degree courses and this attracted people of maybe brighter academically but in many cases more inclined to treat nursing as any other career and thinking more in terms of just drugs... I know she has also commented that she often found the poor auxilliary nurses who hadn't got the qualifications often turned out to be the most caring.

Jon