I AM writing to you with regards to Northwick Park Hospital (NWP).

I keep reading all the time the bad publicity the hospital keeps getting and think I need to say my piece and praise the hospital.

My late husband had been in and out of Northwick Park for many years because of health problems, none of which were caused by the hospital. The staff on the MAU "Medical Assessment Unit" and on the Hardy Ward, the doctors, and their teams and secretaries, were amazing, supportive and very hard working. They were there for my husband and myself 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

The tea ladies, the cleaners, the canteen staff, and the porters all cared so much. The nurses worked so hard that my husband and I have watched them grow from trainee nurses to senior staff nurses both on the MAU and Hardy Ward. I really do believe these people need praise.

I accept there are some health issues at NWP but surely this will occur, it being a hospital. I know for a fact the cleaners worked hard trying to keep wards clean.

It should also be pointed out that the hospital has tried hard to keep in place visiting times and only two visitors per bed and, trust me, there are a lot of people always abusing these rules and the nurses do have to tread carefully.

I must also praise the renal department. They did work hard in very cramped circumstances. The only department that I felt let me down where my husband was concerned was A&E, as thought they could play God without consulting my husband's consultant.

Sadly my husband passed away in October 2007. This was not at NWP but at another hospital in London. If he had been in NWP, he would have been looked after much better than he was in the other hospital.

Please stop beating up NWP. Yes, maybe the management, but most of all the Government in this country - be it Labour or Conservative - is the one which has destroyed our National Health Service and how it's run. It would now also appear that the Government now wants to close down our GP surgeries as well.

CHRISTINE COFFREY

Woodcock Hill Kenton