Many readers might be surprised to hear that Northants Primary Care Trust and Northampton General Hospital did not appear anywhere on the name-and-shame list which accompanied the article.

Our hospital is always being berated for the lack of cleanliness standards when in actual fact, if one was to envision the volume of traffic it sees through the doors in a day, and compare that to somewhere like a train station, one might realise that the hospital is really quite clean.

As a fairly regular visitor to the hospital with two children under consultants' care and a third baby due imminently, I can confidently say that although there is always room for improvement, I feel that with the financial resources the hospital has access to, it does a great job.

As we have heard before, it is up to visitors to use the gel and stay away when they are unwell, and up to physicians to not hand out antibiotics unless they are essential.
Mrs Judith Staff,
Briar Hill Walk, Delapre, Northampton.

I'm feeling fine!
I recently spent time in Northampton General Hospital. I would like to say thank you to the medical staff and everyone who works there.

The ward was nice and clean, we had a good menu every day and everyone was very helpful and cheerful.

Thanks to Becket Ward, I'm now feeling fine.
Mrs D B Merchant,
Wheatfield Road, Abington, Northampton.

11 hours spent on a trolley
In response to the Northampton General Hospital director of nursing's call for 70 nurses with regards to two new specialists units due to open at the hospital, I would like to question why doctors and nurses are having to say sorry to me for the 11 hours I spent on a trolley in A&E last Wednesday.

As the beds manager stated, there was not one bed in the whole of the hospital that l could be admitted to.

What about putting the patient's health first and make sure that the bed management is put in order with staff being able to do the job they were trained for.

My nightmare experience I will never forget and I will now be airing my concerns at the trust board's next meeting at the end of June.
Name and address supplied
but withheld by request.

Lisbon Treaty is dead in the water
The people of the Republic of Ireland are to be applauded for the stance they have taken against the Lisbon Treaty (constitution) of the EU. The rules state that if one of the member countries says "no", then the treaty is dead in the water and should be abandoned.

In 2005, Holland and France voted against the original constitution, so the bureaucrats of Europe created a reformed version, which did not require referenda of the people of the member states. The question is, will the view of the people of the Republic of Ireland be ignored just as the views of those of us in the UK are also being ignored? So much for democracy.

Already Gordon Brown has stated that ratification should go ahead and David Milliband said that the Irish Government needed to "find out what went wrong".

That is an insult to the Irish people who said no to a treaty that was so jargonistic that few understood it, or perhaps they did not want to be conned, or bullied.

The unelected bureaucrats of Europe also want to proceed with ratification and ignore the views of the peoples of Europe.

Out of the 27 member countries in Europe, Ireland was the only country to hold a referendum on the treaty (a requirement of their constitution). This in itself points to the lack of democracy at the heart of Europe. The clear beneficiaries are those on the gravy train of the European Parliamentary bandwagon.

This country has fought numerous battles to retain our sovereignty and democratic freedoms and we now seem to be losing exactly what we have fought for.

A possible candidate for the European presidency is Robert Mugabe, who also does not believe in listening to the people or in democracy and applies bullying tactics (and much worse) to succeed.

If ratification goes ahead, it will be too late after the next election to change things, our MPs must take notice that the people of this country want and should have a referendum now, with publication in plain English of exactly what this treaty entails.
Peter and Marion Minney,
Irondale Close, Northampton.

Irish will have a drink on me
Three cheers for the Irish. When I go to my local I'll buy my Irish friends a drink. They've done what 75 per cent of the British would do if they hadn't been denied a promised vote by the dictator of Downing Street.

They've thrown out the hated European constitution.

Ireland has shown that the will of the people is something not to be trifled with. Bottler Brown denied us, but he can't silence us and he'll find out to his cost at voting time, as will every other MP who think they can ignore the people who put them in power.

They have to get off their backsides and listen to the people and they'll then find they are the ones who are out of step with us, not us with them.
John Pendleton,
Lower Thrift Street, Northampton.

Get rid of hideous buildings first
Terry Wright was spot on in his letter of June 4.

I've visited many European towns and cities, which have embraced some wonderful modern architecture, such as Graz in Austria, but not at the cost of what is already beautiful.

There are plenty of other hideous buildings in Northampton that could be sacrificed to make way for something new and exciting, but I fear that whatever the council does allow will be nondescript, bland, unimaginative and safe.

So leave our decent buildings alone, no other town in England . . . Europe . . . no practically the whole world, in these enlightened and un-war times, would allow their heritage to be destroyed like this.
Gary Lovell,
Ryehill Close, Lodge Farm, Northampton.

Foreign players ruining cricket
I agree with every word John Lewis said about Northamptonshire County Cricket Club.

He believes they are ruining English cricket with the amount of foreign players.

Having kicked the bowls team off the ground, which they don't own, they have reached the very highest level of hypocrisy as the ground itself was left in trust strictly for the use of the sporting people of Northampton.
Paul Cooke,
Avon Drive, Northampton.