This week marks the 60th anniversary of the NHS, 60 years of great triumphs, staggering technological advancement and a pioneering concept of free health care for everyone brought to fruition, writes blogger Charlie Cashdan.

This bright and fantastic initiative to allow everyone access to free treatment was, of course, brilliant and necessary in it’s infancy but 60 years down the line and the NHS is seriously over burdened, under-funded and riddled with problems.

Start a conversation about the NHS anywhere, with any group of people and at least one person will have a horror story to tell.  These range from rude consultants and lost notes to more serious situations involving MRSA and shocking neglect of the elderly.

Access to a local GP is a particular soapbox favourite of mine.  All other service industries are set up to provide access to their services at key times when the majority of their customers will want access to them. They are customer driven and the costumer comes first regardless.

I worked in retail for many years and still supply the retail industry and my staff are expected to work late nights, Saturdays and Sundays.  Failure to do this restricts their ability to get work. I have worked in catering and the pub trade, also accessible evenings and weekends when people need them.  So why can’t doctors provide the same?

Why should people have to miss time at work incurring hassle and often loss of pay just because a doctor who probably earns four times as much as them, doesn’t fancy doing a Saturday shift?  How very old fashioned and completely out of touch with the modern world for any service professional to work a 9-5 Monday to Friday only schedule!

You seem to get a wildly differing picture of the NHS depending on whom you speak to.

My father is retired and is therefore able to go to the doctors whenever he needs to.  He never has a problem getting an appointment.  He had a heart attack some years ago and received excellent care from his local surgery and hospital.

My husband has always received faultless service whenever he has been hospitalised, so have my stepsons.

My mother and myself have had nothing but a complete catalogue of errors because it seems very much to me that unless you go to the doctors/hospital with something obvious and are a man, no one takes you very seriously.

I went back and forth from doctors and various hospitals between the ages of 5 to 24 with a painful urinary complaint which I had suffered with from birth.  The mistreatment, misdiagnoses, horribly rude consultants and errors experienced during those years would fill several blogs!

I decided that I had experienced enough and it was better to just suffer alone than continue with the NHS so I didn’t see a doctor about my problems again for 6 years.  The pain has become increasingly difficult to manage of late and my husband persuaded me to try again this year and after a six-year wait I was full of hope that things may have improved.

I was so wrong.

After waiting six years, the consultant spent four minutes with me at my first appointment and was so abrupt I left the room and sobbed.

I returned for my second appointment and waited over an hour while the consultant saw everyone else in the waiting room.  When I was the only person remaining, he left the consulting room, walked through the waiting room and disappeared.

My husband and I presumed that he had just gone for a quick break but the registrar called us through and explained he had been called to an emergency.  The registrar was quite kind and tried to help but we then discovered that he had the wrong notes.  A search began to find the correct ones detailing all my treatment over the years but they could not be found.

I then had to try and remember all my complex medical history and we concluded that the next step would be an MRI scan.

When my appointment came weeks later it was not for an MRI as expected but for an ultrasound scan, of which I’ve had at least ten already!

Dutifully, I went along to the appointment and got scanned with an ancient scanner that couldn’t really show any detail and subsequently found nothing.

That was over three months ago and I haven’t heard from the hospital at all since.  Clearly they have lost interest leaving me completely stuck, as I can’t afford private treatment.

I have spoken to countless women over the years all telling similar stories of having to fight and push for a diagnosis.

I don’t deny that the NHS has saved many lives and can provide fantastic treatment.  The nurses in particular have always been excellent to me and they work so hard for so little pay that I have much respect for them.  I just wish that my overall experience of the service had been better and that we were all viewed as customers rather than patients because changing that one little word could mean a big change in attitudes.

Agree with Charlie? What is your experience of the NHS? Post your comments below.