THE NHS comes under a lot of criticism for factors varying from long A&E waits to cancelled operations and delays having cancer treatment.

There is undoubtedly pressure on the health service as it grapples with funding pressures and the demands of an ageing population.

Yet despite this pressure, I experienced first hand the wonderful work its staff do in looking after patients when I spent a week at Royal Blackburn Hospital recently.

Last Monday, after contacting NHS 111, I admitted myself to the hospital’s urgent care centre with severe pain in my abdomen.

It left me unable to walk or breathe properly or cough as I was in so much pain and I spent the best part of two hours waiting to be seen in the urgent care centre.

I was then seen by a nurse who assessed my condition and I underwent a blood test and ECG before a doctor told me they suspected I had appendicitis.

Appendicitis is a painful swelling of the appendix that starts with a pain in the middle of your tummy (abdomen) that may come and go.

Within hours, the pain travels to the lower right-hand side, where the appendix usually lies, and becomes constant and severe.

So I was advised that I would have to have surgery to remove the appendix, as if left untreated, an inflamed appendix will eventually burst, spilling infectious materials into the abdominal cavity.

It was the following day on the Tuesday that I was put to sleep and had the operation.

However, on coming round, I learned from the nurse on the ward where I was staying, ward C18 A, which is the surgical ward, that they hadn’t taken my appendix out as there was nothing wrong with it.

So I was still in the dark as to what was causing my pain but I had to be given morphine for it and also had antibiotics and fluids pumped into me from a machine next to my hospital bed.

I was also given tablets, including paracetamol.

On the Thursday, I had an ultrasound at the hospital, which again didn’t show anything abnormal, but it is suspected I had a water infection.

Fortunately, on the Friday, I became well enough to go home again as the pain went away.

My stay at hospital was a scary one and I was in a lot of pain, with the worst thing undoubtedly being having to wear a catheter as I couldn’t go to the toilet.

However, I have got nothing but praise for the wonderful nurses, doctors and health care assistants.

Their care was brilliant and I wouldn’t have got through it without them, and the hospital meals weren’t too bad either.

We had a choice of cereals in the morning and bread rolls and jam, and then for lunch I had meals including tomato and pasta, steak and kidney pudding and mash and sponge cake and custard.

My stay in hospital was one I won’t forget, but I’m on the mend now and feeling a lot better.

I’m just drinking plenty of fluids and I’m on paracetamol and ibuprofen.

Long live the NHS though. For all its criticism and pressures, we really do possess a first-class, world-class health service to be proud of.