Listening to the Prime Minister responding to questions from health professionals on TV the other night, one thing became only too depressingly clear.

Not only are there not enough resources in the NHS now to meet everyone's expectations, but there never can be.

Demand will always exceed supply. That is a fact of life which no government can alter - although there are obviously things which could be done to ease the situation.

For instance, it's appalling that people are dying or deteriorating because health authorities cannot afford to pay for the drugs that might help them. Might perhaps at least part of the answer to that be to make the drugs cheaper instead of letting them continue to be a source of such huge profits for the pharmaceutical companies?

However, there's surely a much simpler way of saving money - and saving lives. It's quite terrifying, but not at all surprising, that 5,000 people a year are reported to die as a result of infections acquired in hospital.

Add to those the countless patients who survive infections, though only after expensive and prolonged treatment, and it becomes clear that disease acquired in hospital is a major epidemic.

To someone outside the health sector, whose only experience of hospital wards (touch wood!) has been as a visitor, the answer seems obvious.

Once upon a time there was a peculiar and not entirely pleasant "hospital smell". It was of disinfectant. That was in the days when hospital floors gleamed, walls sparkled, and bed linen was crisp and fresh.

But in recent years standards of hospital hygiene have plummeted and that smell has gone. There has been too much reliance on antibiotics to clear up infections, and that in turn has led to strains of bacteria which are now immune to most of these drugs.

Anyone who has experienced hospital as patient or visitor can quote you examples: of thermometers left lying on the top of bedside lockers, of a fruit pastille gathering dust beneath a bed for more than a week, of walls undusted and floors unpolished.

Cutting the cost of cleaning might have been seen as a way of saving money, but in the long run its consequences are costing a fortune.

If the NHS cleaned up its act and reintroduced those strict hygiene standards of yesteryear, complete with "hospital smell," then it might well save resources to be spent on the vital treatment some patients desperately need.

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.