MY husband recently had the misfortune to fall ill in the early hours of a Sunday, and from ringing the NHS helpline to his discharge from hospital 17 days later we cannot fault the care he received.

He is 72 with a history of major heart surgery.

Staff established quickly he had a severe infection, they used every diagnostic tool they could to establish the source and finally identified a suitable antibiotic to successfully treat him.

He spent time on wards 10 and 15 at Leighton Hospital and both the treatment and care were outstanding.

The cleanliness regime was excellent and yet on two occasions we witnessed a lack of respect for staff.

Listening to the news and pundits today, you would believe everything is dire in the NHS. Yes it does have problems but mainly because we now expect so much more from it and so many people abuse that.

As a country we need to practice what we preach and protect it by taking some personal responsibility for our own wellbeing. It needs to be taken out of politics and put back to the people to decide its priorities.

I don’t know how much money is spent on private health schemes but I suspect it is quite considerable.

From the people I have spoken to they would prefer to pay more NI contributions instead but they need to be reassured that it goes to the right things. We need to go back to the principles on which the NHS was founded.

It was set up to look after the sick and the needy, who through no fault of their own, got sick and or incapacitated, not to fund lifestyle choices.

The system and staff are trying hard to uphold this. We are so lucky to have this so let’s get a grip and make it work.

Thank you to the staff at NHS Direct and Leighton Hospital Maureen Roberts Address supplied