IT was with a certain amount of love and excitement that I thought about spending my first Christmas in Taunton since I emigrated to Australia 13 years ago.

That joyous time when you get to meet family and friends you have not seen in an age.

Things can turn sour quite quickly however and when my wife and I developed what felt like a bad attack of the plague we were forced to dip our toes in the muddy river they call the NHS.

Now don’t get me wrong, I appreciate everyone needs holidays and medical staff are no different and goodness knows they work hard enough.

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But when I exercised my plague ridden fingers and dialled 111, I was transformed into another world.

After spending a pleasant hour talking to the “gatekeeper” it was deemed that I should speak to a nurse.

Two hours later and now with a temperature that could kill I received a call from the nurse who proceeded to ask me exactly the same questions I had already been asked.

I comply because frankly I lost my will to live somewhere between WH Smiths and Debenhams.

Stage three gets me to speak to a real doctor, woohoo I am making progress thinks I, with the thought of a script for antibiotics flying to the local pharmacy.

But no, I now have to actually see the doctor at Musgrove.

The great news is they can fit me in when the night shift is on. So here it is, it took me 13 hours from when I first spoke to someone to seeing the doctor.

My wife then got sick and the whole process was repeated.

I am not sure what has happened in the time I have been away.

Either way the system is now a disaster and I am not sure why more people are not dying.

STEVE MILLARD
Australia