To Maidstone Hospital yesterday for a long awaited `procedure` involving some surgery around one of my eyes - nothing too troublesome, just some local anaesthetic and 45 minutes in `theatre.`

All went well - I`m on the mend and already sensing that it was a job worth doing and that it was done very well.

And that really is the point of this post and Matt`s cartoon pretty much sums up yesterday`s experience for me.  Four of us patients for similar `procedures` were required to report at the hospital at 12.30pm.  We then had the preliminary administrative things which took but a few minutes and then we were invited to take our seats in the waiting area and wait our turn for the actual `procedure` to be carried out.

As we sat waiting, I wondered in what order we would be called.  It crossed my mind that it might be alphabetical but I realised it was too late to change my name by deed poll to Mr. Aardvark, so along with the others we just waited....and waited.   Eventually the first patient was called....then the next.....and the next....and I finally got called in for surgery about four and a half hours after I first arrived.   

That time made me suspect, as the pre-surgery anxiety levels continued to rise, that there must surely be a more efficient way of organising things like this - for example, calling two patients in at a time rather than all four - two could be called at 12.30. the other two at, say, 3.00pm?   I also noticed that there were several NHS staff who seemed to be hanging around the waiting area and I began to wonder whether they were all really necessary and what they were all supposed to be doing - I suspected that some of them had the same had the same feelings.

But I refuse to grumble about the NHS because the quality of surgery, care and attitude towards patients (now I know why patients have to be patient) was exemplary and I remain grateful for the attention I received.  I hesitate to enter a note of criticism but I was left with the feeling that a bit more organisation and perhaps a few less but perhaps more structured support staff might be called for?    Not for the first time it seems Matt`s cartoon has wider relevance than first imagined.