My 18-hour wait in A&E shows scale of the challenge

The Independent's political columnist, Andrew Grice, finds his hospital visit exposes the urgent need for NHS reform

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After a few tiny sips of wine (honestly), I realised I was slurring my words.

I was sweating profusely and then couldn’t get any words out at all. My eyes closed.

When they opened, I was still sitting with two friends in a north London pub. They looked concerned, and one had already confiscated my drink. “What happened?” I asked. “I think you’ve had a mini-stroke,” one of them said, recalling his own one, and saying my speech had been slurred since we had met up 20 minutes earlier.

I was sceptical and tried to prove I was OK by rattling off a list of who was playing well this season for my mates’ team, Coventry City. But I wasn’t OK. One of them dialled 999. I now know that was the right thing to do. Wrongly, I persuaded him to call 111 instead. A face-to-face appointment with an out-of-hours GP was arranged, but she rang me and, after a few questions, ordered me to the nearest accident and emergency department as soon as possible.

Arriving at Barnet Hospital was surreal because my wife, Jacquie, had also driven me there exactly 12 hours earlier for a followup appointment about my fractured arm. (My ailments are trivial compared to hers. For good measure, we had spent the afternoon at another hospital where she is being treated for ovarian cancer).

My most recent experience at an emergency care centre was a brilliant one - at Chase Farm Hospital in Enfield, my arm was sorted in 90 minutes. Naively, I didn’t expect Barnet’s 24-hour A&E to be busy at 8.30pm on a Monday, but there was standing room only for the 150 people crammed into it. 'I am no expert, but there seemed to be a long delay for patients who needed to be admitted, or at least quicker treatment'

The triage system worked well; everyone was seen quite quickly. I had an ECG and some blood tests, though one repeat test for heart muscle problems had to be repeated four hours later as my sample hadn't been taken to the lab quickly enough.