IF people find the cost of watching television in hospital exorbitant let them do what I did in the John Radcliffe three years ago – listen to the radio, read books and newspapers and, if possible, chat to the staff and fellow patients.

Besides this, there were so many routine and optional medical activities of various kinds I hardly had time for TV.

We were treated, presumably as bait, to an hour’s free viewing every morning, which was more than enough for me.

This was preferable to the arrangement in the old days when a set was perched at the end of the long wards so that most of us could only half see and hear the programmes.

When I contemplate some of the obscenities occurring in our hospitals every day, this concern appears extremely banal in comparison.

And to a mere, if somewhat prolific layman, it seems bizarre it should be granted prominence equal to that of gross incompetence and negligence.

Lastly, not all hospitalised patients are ‘ipso facto’ financially disadvantaged, quite the contrary in many cases.

And if prisoners are required to fork out only a quid daily, this amount presumably represents, or should constitute, a considerable proportion of their income, with the probable additional benefit of fostering discipline most of the time.

DAVID DIMENT, Riverside Court, Oxford