SEVEN weeks in three hospitals leaves one with plenty to ponder.

First and foremost, what a wonderful example of Christian principle in action the NHS is.

It is open to all, cares for all on an equal basis and according to need, and is paid for by us all according to our means. Whatever our criticisms in detail, it is an institution of which we should be intensely proud.

As for its working in practice, so much depends on the character of those who work within it.

I can remember very little of my time in intensive care, but an abiding memory is of the unfailing kindness of the staff caring for me. It is one thing to be cared for efficiently; it is another and greater thing to feel that care is suffused with warmth.

The same could be said to a lesser degree about care on the wards. There the nurses are more thinly spread, and I noticed how they were almost invariably interrupted in one task by someone asking them to perform another; many of the demands made on them were trivial and unreasonable, and a proportion of patients were extremely hard to handle.

It speaks highly for them that for the most part they retained their cheerful composure, and laced their professional tasks with friendly conversation and a recognition of their charges as individuals.

So far, so Christian; but one hospital practice, to which doctors are particularly prone, is dehumanising. It is to talk about the patients they are seeing without talking to them, or even recognising that they are there.

Patients are apparently regarded as clinical problems rather than as people, and the doctors fail to recognise that the person lying in the bed is entitled to be a part of their conversation.

Almost as bad and equally common is the bedside visit so brief as to be almost insulting; a visit which says in as many words: "I am a very busy person, and your concerns are unimportant."

So patients are depersonalised and denied their individuality.

I am very relieved to be home again, and to be able to resume these columns (deep thanks, by the way, to David and Andy for filling in while I have been away, and to the very many who have prayed for me).

But I owe those who cared for me in hospital a deep debt, and, despite my reservations I have a deep sense of having been on the receiving end of Christianity put into practice.