For the past two years my father Bill Wilkinson was a patient on Meyrick Ward in King’s Park Hospital, Boscombe.

I would like to thank everyone involved in his care after he was admitted to hospital when my mother could no longer cope with his advancing Alzheimers. This disease has at times caused him to behave out of character, becoming both verbally and physically aggressive.

The staff, with great understanding and professionalism, helped us to see this was part of the illness and that they knew what a kind, loving husband and family man he had been.

On more than one occasion when I thanked the staff, they said they were just doing their jobs. To our family it has been so much more. They may be doing their jobs but with an attitude to be admired. He has at all times been treated with respect and his dignity has been maintained. The day before dad left, one of the staff said to me, thank you for sharing him with us. Yes he was ours, but they cared enough to feel that a part of him belonged to them too.

LYNN BALL, Fitzpain Close, Ferndown