Nurses are being urged to improve their service and stop being impatient when answering patients' questions.

Hospitals should improve nursing services, such as adopting creative ways of serving patients, regulating nursing procedures and encouraging nurses to improve how they communicate with patients, the National Health and Family Planning Commission said in a notice on March 17.

Hospitals should provide more support to nurses by creating a better working environment for them, along with better training and higher pay, the commission said, and nurses should also be managed better to encourage them in their work.

"I don't think the problems can be solved just by issuing a notice," said a nurse at a general hospital in Beijing who asked to remain anonymous.

"It is a sensitive topic. Suppose a nurse attends dozens of patients every day; it is almost impossible to be smiling and patient all the time."

The health authorities should try to reform the current medical system to solve the problems at the root, the nurse said.

Health authorities have taken a number of measures in recent years to provide better healthcare to all patients.

They have given more autonomy to doctors to allow them to practice medicine in medical institutions other than where they are employed, and have channeled medical resources from large general hospitals, which are usually swarming with patients, to smaller hospitals and clinics, which usually lack enough doctors and nurses to attract patients.

Hospitals and clinics in China provided 7.3 billion outpatient services in 2013, and there were about 70,000 disputes between medical workers and patients, according to the National Health and Family Planning Commission.

About a quarter of doctors believe inadequate services and a lack of communication with patients is a major cause of violent disputes between doctors and patients or their families, according to a survey of 3,704 doctors by the Chinese Medical Doctors Association.