The NHS in action
Sir: I have just read Alexander Chancellor's account of his unfortunate brush with the National Health Service and it would be interesting to know why my story is so very different to his. My experience concerns fingers too: I sliced the top off two of them last Saturday afternoon while enthusiastically but clumsily experimenting with a newly acquired piece of kitchen equipment. Having recently moved here from London, where we have been 'private patients' Tr Many long and expensive years, I had to ring directory enquiries for the name of the nearest doctor. The doctor instructed me to go to casualty at Didcot Hospital and ask the nurse on duty to telephone him the Moment I arrived. At casualty I got a cheerful and sympathetic welcome, the fingers 7'ere dressed immediately by a delightful I a. d called Flo who gave me a tetanus injectPn (painless) and advised me to have a stiff 'fink and return on Monday to have the Lingers dressed. She didn't call the doctor Pt:Cause no stitches were required. On :`°ndaY Nurse Flo announced that the "netor had arrived at casualty but two Tinutes after I had left on Saturday, to see tat all was well, and that he would like to see me at his surgery on Wednesday. 43r1 Wednesday I went to the doctor's surgery at the local Health Centre where I
sked if I might join his panel, but not e Ore he had expressed interest in my wel fare and that of my family.
shS0 Perhaps we are lucky to live in OxfordWhere my first experience of the "ational Health Service in action demonstrated humanity, speed, efficiency and ncern; rather more attention, indeed, 'flan I received recently at the hands of two reoccupied young women in a smart HareY Street clinic who were facilitating asPects of a routine check-up for which, needless to say, I was charged nearly as as my annual contribution to the 2.a.tional Health Service. tilzabeth Alexander ;;IlerrY Court,
.orth Moreton, "ncleot, Oxfordshire
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