We have all suffered in one way or another during this awful pandemic since March 2020 and whenever we have been asked to conform, in many instances not to our liking, most of us have dealt with these instructions just to keep ourselves okay.

This is my recent experience with the NHS which I would like to share, especially as I am no longer in the flush of youth (born 1935) to illustrate that official guidance has been helpful to me and to show that life is not all doom and gloom.

On January 5, 2021 I decided to take my Xmas decorations down but unfortunately my legs and feet became entangled with my steps and I crashed down extremely heavily backwards onto a marble fireplace hearth slab, fortunately not loosing consciousness, but a really bad fall.

Over the next few days with excruciating pains in my back and having spoken to my GP, he advised me to immediately have an X-ray, but I told him that I had heard so many rumours about going into hospital and not coming out that I was very very apprehensive. Initially he suggested going to Hemel Hempstead Hospital as they have no A&E and as needs must my family took me there. Their medical assessment after the scan was that I now needed a MRI scan as well and again very nervously I went into the A&E at Watford General Hospital.

I couldn’t have been more wrong as they worked so hard in trying to keep Covid and non Covid patients segregated and I was comforted, examined, initially diagnosed and treated before being sent up to AAU ward. There, and subsequently in Cassio ward, I was comprehensively dealt with over the next few days before being allowed home on Saturday, January 16.

I wanted to highlight that my hearsay concerns were dashed by the professional attitude of the National Health Service treatment I received at Watford General and Hemel Hempstead Hospitals and I couldn’t have wished for any more dedicated teams who sent me home, albeit with a huge bag of pills and packages.

So thank you National Health Service.

This in not the end of the story, luckily I do have my family close by and they have all rallied around and this is one time when I can thank them in print.

So thank you all the Clements and Crossley families.

Roy Clements

Oxhey Hall