I'VE BEEN in the wars and have scars to show from head to toe.

After falling in Mayfair and smashing my forehead on house steps that intruded on a footpath and then dropping an RSJ on my foot in Headington, I was recently admitted to Accident and Emergency wards in London and in Oxford.

How do they compare? What exactly is the state of health of A&E at the JR? That department has taken some flack this year, so what’s the verdict from the point of view of an accidental patient?

In this tale of two cities I was wending my way through the dark, wet backstreets of Mayfair at nine on a Saturday night to catch the Oxford bus at Marble Arch when I tripped on house steps in the footpath.

A stranger who turned out to be a doctor called an ambulance, against my protestations – ‘I think you are over-reacting.’ I was whisked to St Mary’s Hospital in Paddington in a matter of minutes.

Newspaper headlines that day were ominous: “Top doctors Warn of Worst Winter in Hospitals as A&E Crisis Grows”, “Waiting Times Already Cause of Grave Concern”, “Log Jam a Potential Tipping point for NHS.”

Was I in for a six- to 12-hour trolley wait? After all a winter’s Saturday night in London must be the worst time for A&E wards in the whole country?

I was surprised to find there were only six patients in the small waiting room at St Mary’s – all with head injuries – plus eight cleaners (the place was spotless) and nine cops who provided the best diversion.

One policeman and his interpreter were interviewing an Eastern European in the corridor: “How many times did you hit your father-in-law? How many times did he hit you?

“How long before he left to get the carving knife? How would you describe the injuries to your head and hand?”

Within an hour I had my own bedroom after the initial treatment. They took me for a CAT scan and did 300 images of my brain in a matter of minutes, X-rayed my arm and leg, gave me painkillers and let me sleep.

The doctor put five stitches in my wound, bound up my head and shook my hand: “Shouldn’t this be the other way round? I should be thanking you,” I said.

“No,” he replied, “I wanted to say thank you for being such a fine patient.

“Good night and good luck.”

Well…so much for the doom-laden headlines. I’d give St Mary’s Hospital in Paddington nine out of 10. The whole experience took nine hours.

But what about Oxford’s A&E at the John Radcliffe Hospital? I knew they had problems in the spring. During April the number of people seen sooner than four hours at Oxfordshire A&E departments fell to just 77.8 per cent. Ambulances were queueing to drop off patients and operations were cancelled to free up more beds.

On BBC Radio Oxford I had interviewed Dr James Price, the Oxford University Hospitals NHS Trust’s head of emergency medicine, and he apologised for rising A&E waiting times and said emergency admissions had increased in the first four months this year by 20.4 per cent.

I was an emergency admission last week and so I could check personally on any progress or problems. I didn’t contrive this. Again on a Saturday night I had an accident and dropped an RSJ on my foot while working at the Shark House. I felt like a fool and didn’t want to bother the A&E ward so I drifted off to a fitful sleep but woke up screaming in agony, just in time to present my Sunday morning programme on BBC Oxford. During that broadcast my foot was in shock and the rest of my body was catching up fast. But I carried on and went to A&E afterwards.

On a Sunday afternoon I found 19 people sitting in the waiting area. It could be worse, I thought. The guestimate from the receptionist was 30 minutes before I would be seen, but I was called in 20 minutes to triage by Jenny whose office door had the words “Elf Assessment” blazoned in bright Christmas colours. She arranged for an X-ray on my foot within 30 minutes.

Very soon I was called to see the doctor, only the ‘doctor’ was not a doctor but an ENP – that’s Emergency Nurse Practitioner to you and me – called Rachel Bull who was every patient’s answer to anxiety. She was calm, reassuring, specific and informed. She took off my socks…gently. We’ve all been warned by our mothers to wear clean underwear because we never know when we will be taken to the hospital, but Mum didn’t mention socks. Mine were two days old, dirty and had a slogan printed on each one: Give Us a Kiss.

I was going to survive. My foot was not splintered and she produced an inclined shoe to relieve pressure on the fracture and a pair of crutches in minutes.

And she arranged a check-up appointment with the trauma clinic on Monday ‘just to keep tabs’.

I mentioned I was surprised how quickly A&E staff dealt with people and suggested this must be a quiet time.

“Absolutely not”, she replied. “I checked the computer before seeing you and there were 63 patients now in A&E. It’s pretty full, but you wouldn’t know it because they are spread throughout the unit. This figure is about 50 per cent up from last year.”

The whole experience was over in two hours, 20 minutes when I limped out the door. I’d say they deserve 10 out of 10 for grace under pressure.

When you’ve got something that works, celebrate it.