Today I had two hospital appointments at two different hospitals, making three appointments at three hospitals since they let me out last week.

What really strikes me is the excellence of the multi-disicplinary, multi-site working that is involved here.  A surgical-oncologist, a clinical-oncologist and an onco-plastic surgeon at three different hospitals, each of whom clearly has respect for the others and is committed to playing their part in an holistic approach to the treatment of their patients.  Add to that a collection of specialist nurses, and a radiotherapist who I met today, and you begin to see what a good multi-disciplinary team looks like.

I enjoy the different personalities of these professionals, and at a professional level am struck by their superb pastoral skills; I feel safe with each of these people as individuals and collectively as a team.

It is way too easy to criticise the NHS but based on my experiences thus far, there is no better experience of health care that money could buy.

I do know that not everyone is in the same league as my medical team, and I have seen a few jobsworths and people in the wrong jobs along the way, but this is, surely, a model of excellence which I hope is able to be sustained for a very long time to come.