Martin Vander Weyer: In my hospital bed, I saw the future of the NHS

I blamed the pheasant casserole, but I did it an injustice. Its only contribution to the drama behind my disappearance in mid-December was a residue of lead shot in the small intestine that briefly confused the radiologist. The real villain revealed by the scan was my appendix, which had taken on the raging, bull-necked, bug-eyed appearance of Ed Balls faced with a set of improving growth figures.

And so it was that I spent a week in the Friarage at Northallerton, a small ‘district general hospital’ that has survived every NHS restructuring to date and is cherished by the citizenry of rural North Yorkshire. For someone who hasn’t been hospitalised since 1957, this was the Full Monty: the ambulance in the night, the agonised wait in A&E, the sudden euphoria of morphine; and when the crisis had passed, the stultifying routine of life on the ward, waiting for the relief of the next visiting hour or doctors’ round or tea trolley or troublesome patient. But at least it gave me time to think — not just about the state of the health service, but about the ailments of the nation in 2014 and beyond.

Of course I shouldn’t leap to generalisations on the basis of a single skirmish with the NHS. But I’ll say this: given limitless demand as longevity rises, inevitable scarcities and bottlenecks of resources, bureaucratic risk-aversion driven by fear of the Daily Mail, and voters’ reluctance to pay more tax for anything, including their own healthcare, it’s a miracle this giant contraption is as robust as it is.

Could it be more efficient? Of course it could, in every corner. It took 60 hours after admission — and a clearly foolish threat to discharge myself — before they finally wheeled me past a scanner appeal poster and fed me into the space-age machine that settled the diagnosis.