[3] The patients include John, a Welsh coal miner in a state of denial about his disease; Ian, a woman-chasing RAF officer; Bob, a man losing his girlfriend due to his lengthy stay in hospital; Henry, a supercilious bachelor with a devoted, letter-writing sister; George, a West Country farmer with hidden intelligence; and the young Chris, a timid and sensitive trainee chef who writes poetry and is bullied by John about his masculinity.

The inactivity enforced on the characters weighs heavily on the inventiveness of script-writer Norman Hudis and the plot is largely reduced to schoolboy practical jokes, the frustrated sex urge of Donald Sinden as a cheerful lecher and the romantic pairing-off of patients and nurses.

The players work well together and Juliet Mills, badly miscast as a uncaring teenager in No, My Darling Daughter, matures charmingly as the efficient, selfless Catty.

"[4] Variety wrote: "A shrewd amount of predictable situations are employed such as the dragon of a matron, a pretty nurse losing her skirt and a number of bedpan gags.

The Carry On producer/director team of Peter Rogers and Gerald Thomas would occasionally make these forays away from their popular series, but would invariably use a similar cast.