Satisfied Taxpayer

Stanetta has had a sore tummy that wasn't going away and seemed to be getting worse, so it being the weekend, we had to get on to NHS Direct.

Here's how it worked for us :-

1) Called 08 45 46 47 - within a couple of minutes we were talking symptoms and answering questions posed by the first-line support woman. Slightly awkward to be asked if our 12 year-old could be pregnant, but it does happen.

We were told that a nurse would call us back within an hour - and that no-one today had waited longer than 20 minutes

2) Five minutes later, before I had even finished filling Mrs Stan in on the last call, I got the call-back. Similar questions, but the nurse decided she'd like a GP to take a look at her so we were given an appointment to see someone within 40 minutes in the next town over.

3) Within an hour of the process started, Stanetta had seen a doctor. Thanks to that, she had also stopped panicking and was feeling much better. Ditto for the frantic parents.

The NHS works. The NHS is an amazing thing that we should continue to support and should never compromise. I don't care how much it costs - if we can't afford to keep our people healthy, we should cut something else or raise taxes until we damn well can afford it.