I haven't posted anything at the Cafe for a fortnight because during this time I have had to make use of the NHS. That this coincided with the blow-up this side of the Atlantic after a Conservative politician mouthed off on Hannity that he "wouldn't wish the NHS" on anyone was personally serendipitous.

By way of some background, I am in a good job at a large firm, and I am enrolled in the private healthcare plan available to all employees. And I am very pleased that I have this option, because it provides me, my wife and our young daughter with the best access to specialists when we need them. For example, I contracted Lyme Disease last year, and without private insurance I would have struggled to find a true Lyme specialist (the illness is still rare in the UK). Our daughter suffers from hypolactasia, and without private insurance we might not be able to see the gastroentologist recommended to us by our (NHS)family doctor.

For those that aren't familiar, many doctors, and in particular the specialist physicians, work both for the NHS and in private practice. When you have a particular medical problem that requires a specialist consultation, and you are going through the NHS, what you don't have is the luxury to choose your specialist - at least in the first instance, you go with who is available at the time.

So in this respect, private insurance is invaluable.

But two weeks ago, when I started to experience stomach pains, my first step was to try to arrange to be seen by our family doctor. She had no spare appointments for the afternoon, but agreed to call me when I got home and then see me the following day.

The pains got more severe however, so instead of going home, I called my wife and asked her to come pick me up from the train station and take me to the ER. I, like all us mere non-medically trained mortals, had no real idea what was going on though I am aware how dangerous something like appendicitis is.

The timeline from arriving at the ER went something like this:

2.00pm - Report to the reception. ER is full, am told I may have a 3 hour wait to see a doctor.

2.10 - Seen by a nurse who takes my blood pressure and pulse, and gives me painkillers.

2.20 - Second nurse takes blood for testing.

2.30 - Go back to reception to say the pains are worse, the painkillers have done nothing.

2.35 - Doctor calls me through into the ER. Given a private room, a gown, stronger painkillers, and container for a urine sample.

2.45 - Doctor tells me to go through for chest and stomach x-rays.

3.15 - Short wait to be x-rayed, but that's done, and I go back to the private room where I am put on a drip.

3.40 - ER doctor comes back for a further examination. What relief I had had from painkillers has worn off and when she starts to examine my stomach, I hit the roof. She gets more painkillers and says a surgeon is coming down to see me, but everything suggests a type of hernia.

4.00 - Surgeon visits, tells me it's an incarcerated hernia, they need to operate. Will do it as soon as possible, but in the meantime I'll get taken to the ward where I will be spending the night.

4.30 - Taken up to a urology ward, shared with five other patients. Checked in by ward nurses, drip replaced etc.

5.00 - Nurse tells me they probably aren't going to be operate that evening, but more likely early the next day.

6.00 - In major pain at this point, immediately attended to by the senior nurse on the ward, end up getting doped up on morphine. That's how I spent the night.

8.00am, next day - Taken down to operating theatre. Much of this day henceforth was spent in a daze, but the outcome was I was on my way home at around 8.00pm that evening with a bunch of stitches in my stomach, a bag full of drugs and sick note for work.

There are other details I could go into - the good (how flat-out the NHS staff work), and the bad (hospital food) - but the point here is (a) how quickly I was seen to; (b) how well I was cared for; and (c) that I came home 36 hours later with a clean bill of health without having had to shell out a penny.

I'm not about to look past the NHS's problems, God knows they exist, and I am very mindful that through having private insurance I pay for certain advantages. But my story from two weeks ago is that when I turned up at one of the country's larger NHS hospitals on a busy Monday afternoon urgently needing treatment, I got all the care I needed in extremely good time. And if a similar problem reoccurs, I'd have no hesitation going back to the same hospital.

The idea that this a system you wouldn't wish on anyone is, in a word, unthinkable.