View from the High Street: Love at first sight

Last year’s NHS 70th anniversary quite rightly sparked a flood of declarations of ‘I love the NHS’. And as someone who is both a patient and a provider of NHS services, I’m all for that.

My family had reason to experience the positives of the NHS last year, when my orthoptist son was involved in a serious car accident, resulting in a life-threatening bowel injury. We have so many people to thank for saving his life, from the paramedic who recognised early signs of internal bleeding at my comment of ‘gosh, you look grey’, to the anaesthetist who came on shift early so that surgery could start as my son’s blood pressure was dropping into his boots and his life was quickly hanging in the balance. Fortunately, the outcome was a good one. While it’s been a long recovery, 12 months on and we are now on the other side.