Awaiting an operation or procedure you’ve been mentally and emotionally preparing for is bad enough.

But when it’s out of the blue, often in painful circumstances, it’s shocking that people could be left to wait over an hour before even being assessed, let alone treated.

Yet that is precisely what appears to have been happening at the John Radcliffe Hospital.

Currently, Government targets demand patients should spend no more than four hours in A&E departments, but according to figures just released, between July and September, some patients at the JR waited up to seven-and-a-half hours.

Worse still, guidelines say patients should also only wait 15 minutes for their initial assessment, but at the JR that figure has increased to over an hour.

A damning indictment if ever there were one, and blaming the bed-blocking crisis for negatively impacting on the way patients are seen and dealt with simply isn’t good enough.

Such lack of care from our health care professionals seems hardly possible. Action needs to be taken NOW, and answers given, without one prays, the insulting inconvenience of a seven-hour wait.