"An exemplary hospital experience"

Because of intense abdominal pain, I rang 111 on Friday afternoon, was given an appointment with a GP at the hospital at 6.15 - not a long wait and I was in 15 minutes early. That led to a referral to a specialist who then had me admitted into hospital, where I was very well looked after until the point that a registrar did major initial clearing of my bowel at about 3am(!) which immediately gave me massive pain relief. I was looked after attentively during my stay in ward 14 where the atmosphere was very pleasantly positive.

On Sunday I was sent down for an endoscopy at about 11am. The doctor who was doing it was extremely attentive during what I take it was a pretty long procedure - so much that he suffered once or twice from significant back twinges because of the angle he had to work. The staff down there were also cheerily supportive.

He immediately (note it was a Sunday) rang the consultant I had seen the previous day - and gave me feed back on the consultant's reactions there and then - all very reassuring.

The consultant then saw me again that afternoon, clearly immediately after his operating session, to further update me on the implications of what had been found, and visited me again on his ward round on Monday morning. I felt I was being kept completely in the picture throughout - and very promptly.

After the endoscopy I returned this time to ward 16 and the quality of care there was just as good as 14. Things like the cheery conversation with the cleaner all helped to maintain a very positive morale.

Having remembered the very longwinded discharge procedure in Leicester Hospital when I was a patient there a decade or so ago,I was also impressed with the streamlined sequence at York (despite, I gathered some pressure on that Monday on the pharmacy)

Politicians and the media are constantly harping on about the fact that the NHS is broken. There was nothing whatsoever broken about that hospital experience for me and I am very grateful to all those who were involved in my care.I guess it's the front line that really matters and if the relevant government minister succeeds in getting rid of 5000 administrators, so that you people in direct contact with patients can maintain and develop excellent service, public support should increase immensely. Thank you all.