"The universally high quality of service patients in Bute receive."

Not only are Bute residents admirably served by our local hospital, as your correspondent of the Buteman observed last week, but also by the health centre, the other hospitals with which there are referral arrangements, and the ambulance service. In the last year nineteen departments in three hospitals, a health centre and a dental clinic have had me on their active caseloads.

You may agree that I can justly claim to recognise a good hospital when I see one, because in 1974 I was part of a new management team that took over responsibility for what was officially recognised to be the worst hospital in Scotland.

Also, I vividly remember being ill, in Rothesay, before the start of the NHS. I had a high temperature, pain, was disorientated and passing in and out of consciousness. My concerned and caring parents stood by my bedside all night beside my (or rather their) bed. They long debated whether, and if so how and when, to call the doctor. Why did they not do so? Had they not yet paid the last bill and were reluctant to incur a further charge, or feared they might be refused? Had the doctor not charged them for the last episode of treatment because he thought they could not afford it? Was the doctor himself ill, or old, or single-handed, or (since it was wartime) perhaps even all three?

Nearly seventy years later, I had major cardiac surgery in the Jubilee Hospital. I have never encountered such a uniformity of excellence in equipment, skill, staffing levels, training, morale, job satisfaction and compassion. The target from consultant referral to admission was 18 weeks. I must have been dealt with in little more than half that, since it was only 14 weeks from feeling unwell and making a first GP appointment, to discharge from hospital.

I wonder how long it would have been if it had been urgent?