You really don’t want to know what I think of how the NHS treated me, Mr Streeting…

When Andrew Grice suffered a medical emergency, his consultant told him: ‘I should admit you but we haven’t got the beds.’ Which is why the health secretary may live to regret calling on patients to share their experiences – what happened to our columnist changed everything he once believed about the health service

This is my submission to the government’s public consultation on the NHS, which looks suspiciously like an exercise in buying time while it draws up a 10-year plan by next spring.

I’ve just experienced the best and the worst of the NHS, two issues that Wes Streeting, the health secretary, is talking about as he tentatively sets out Labour’s much-vaunted NHS reforms: the role of the private sector, and the need for a single, digital patient record.

The NHS was there as an emergency service when I needed it. When I drove to accident and emergency at 7am, my bladder dangerously close to bursting point, I was triaged to jump the inevitable overnight long queue and, remarkably, treated within 30 minutes.

My eight hours in A&E was rather emotional: I realised I was about 500 yards from the house where I spent my first 18 years. My sister and brother were born in this hospital and our garden backed against its walls. Lots of (overwhelmingly happy) memories of my family and my childhood came flooding back as I stared at the ceiling, strangely oblivious to the screaming patients and frenetic activity around me in an obviously overstretched A&E. I admired the swamped nurses for juggling so many patients at once.

After my relief at my initial treatment, things changed.

“I should admit you but we haven’t got the beds,” the consultant told me frankly. At the time, I was relieved to be going home. Now I regret I didn’t discover how the NHS would have treated me.

Then I was lost in the system – like many before me, I was passed from pillar to post. In my case, between my GP and the hospital, and even between the A&E and urology departments within the hospital – a novel definition of the NHS internal market. A&E promised a follow-up appointment, assuring me I was “in the system”, but whenever I rang urology, I was told none was scheduled.

The NHS hospital didn’t share information about my condition or blood tests with my GP, sending a flimsy note saying I had presented as “unwell”. Later, I discovered the hospital has a terrible reputation among local health professionals for not passing on patient details to other parts of the system.

So Streeting is right to force health bodies to adopt a single patient record. It might have prevented me from falling between the cracks.

True, there are genuine privacy concerns about anonymised health records being handed to research companies. Ministers must ensure proper safeguards. The government’s record hardly fills you with confidence: in 2007, child benefit data with the records of 25 million people was lost.

From the outset, my wife advised me to opt for private treatment. But I trusted the NHS and believed in it. It wasn’t about the money; I wanted to give the health service a few weeks to see what it could do for me. But eventually, in despair and struggling with living with a catheter, I went private, paying my way as I had no health insurance.

My first appointment was on the day after I rang the private hospital; it’s a different universe. The consultant quickly diagnosed a very enlarged prostate and, thankfully, a scan showed no sign of cancer.

I am very lucky I could afford to go private; millions on the NHS waiting list could not.  I felt guilty about jumping the queue but then remembered I wasn’t even in it.

Was I contributing, in my little way, to the growth of a two-tier system I do not want? I recalled Keir Starmer saying he would not use private healthcare, even for a loved one. Really? I thought: thank goodness I’m not a politician.

Five weeks after fitting my catheter, the NHS hospital rang, asked me whether I still had it and apologised; it should have been removed after two weeks. They had forgotten about me.

The final irony: the NHS offered me an initial appointment on the very day of my private op. I knew then I had made the right call. I suspect NHS treatment would have taken months, rather than weeks in the independent sector.

As I recovered at home after surgery, I listened to Streeting tell BBC Radio 4 about his plans to pay the private sector to treat more NHS patients to cut waiting lists, insisting treatment would still be “free at the point of use”.

Previously, I had been sceptical about this but now realise my experience has changed my mind. Why shouldn’t people on NHS waiting lists with conditions far more serious than mine be treated more quickly – and enjoy my good experience – by using the private sector’s spare capacity? The Blair and Brown governments transformed NHS waiting times through more private provision, patient choice and money.

Yes, it will be harder this time, with the economy growing less strongly and less money available despite next week’s Budget boost for the NHS, which probably won’t come on stream until next April.

Greater use of the independent sector, which already carries out up to one in five NHS operations in some areas, is not a magic bullet for an NHS in crisis. There are risks, such as the poaching of NHS-trained staff. Streeting must choose the right targets and end the divide under which private treatment on the NHS is more available in the most affluent areas (25 per cent) than the most deprived ones (11 per cent) on current arrangements, according to the Health Foundation think tank.

However, as Streeting rightly put it: “It’s not a matter of ideology. This is a matter of what works and getting value for taxpayers’ money.”

I’m now convinced that, handled with care, the independent sector can help get the NHS back on its feet. It’s only one part of the jigsaw but our health service needs all the help it can get.