I've been a bit poorly for the last three weeks (and still have some way to go, though I'm on the mend). I heard a chap on the Today programme on Radio 4 this morning talking about his dreadful experience in A&E. He had a ten-hour wait before he was seen by anyone.

Well this is what happened to me. In the early morning of 3 September, out of the blue, I was struck down by a vicious fever that lasted three or four hours. By morning light, my legs started to discolour and were beginning to swell. I knew what this was because I've had the same thing three times before since the start of the pandemic - cellulitis again.

If you start with cellulitis and have the accompanying fever, the advice on the NHS website is to go to A&E. There's the danger that the infection will spread rapidly though the blood system and cause sepsis, which is life-threatening. I arrived at A&E at North Devon District Hospital at 2pm, an hour's drive from our house. The waiting room was hot, stuffy and noisy, quite crowded, and the seats were incredibly uncomfortable. I was seen by a triage nurse at 7pm, a cursory lookover to take my blood pressure and temperature and to confirm who I am.


At 8.15pm I was seen by a doctor, who was lovely, but I was with her for less than five minutes. She prescribed the antibiotics I needed, then said that she would like to do a blood test. The result would take at least an hour to arrive. I told her that I was at the end of my tether, so she agreed that I could have the blood test at my GP surgery on the Monday morning. We got home at 9.45pm. I'm no softie, but the whole experience that day was traumatising in the extreme. A sick bloke in a hot, stuffy room for over six hours on a seat made in hell.

Since then I've had to go back to the hospital five times. The first time, the wait was almost as long, but at least the room was comfortable and the staff very attentive.

The staff at that hospital are angels. They are run off their feet but they are unfailingly wonderful with their patients. My trauma had nothing to do with them. But they are overworked, stressed out and totally knackered. We can't run our health service like this. Twelve years ago when Mrs Steve had issues with cataracts, there was no way that anyone would wait for treatment for more than 18 weeks. When my back needed surgery, I was operated on within ten weeks of first reporting to my GP. Same with my dodgy shoulder when my rotator cuff needed mending.

I don't know what's gone so wrong in the last ten or twelve years. I need Starmer to tell me. I need him to tell me why schools are crumbling away. I need him to tell me why the NHS isn't coping. But where is he?