Peter Farley has had first-hand experience of the A&E crisis.

I am very blessed to be fit and in good health, and to not suffer from any real disability or disadvantage. Thankfully too, I have not had to use A&E services in recent years. It was therefore very enlightening, to recently get an unexpected glimpse of what it is like to go to hospital for emergency treatment.

Late last Friday night, I passed out, while getting out of a hot bath and fell onto the wash-hand basin, splitting open my chin and ramming the edge of the basin into my larynx. Thinking that it wasn't too great a cut, my wife applied pressure with a taped-down pad, and I retired for the night. Not appreciating sufficiently, the implications of taking anticoagulants, I awoke two hours later, to discover the bedclothes soaked with blood.

My wife phoned 111, and they decided that an ambulance response was needed. Four and a half hours later, an ambulance team arrived from Beccles (42 miles away). I have nothing but praise for the way they looked after me, before 'blue-lighting' me 25 miles to Norfolk and Norwich Hospital. In A&E, I was one of six patients waiting on trolleys in the corridor, to be seen by a doctor. To stop the bleeding, which had come through the very thick dressing applied by the ambulance crew, I was soon seen and stitches put in.

Shortly afterwards, I was seen by an ENT consultant and given a laryngoscopy and later an X-ray of my throat was taken. It was decided that I needed to be admitted to a ward.

By then, it was about 7.30am, and I was sent to an already busy A&E waiting room. Again, I have nothing but praise for the treatment I received.

Less than two hours later, the waiting room was packed with patients and carers, standing room only. Patients ranged from a few months old, to others in at least their eighties. Some were still in nightwear, others in wheelchairs. Some in great distress, others stoical. As soon as a chair was vacated, there was a rush to seize it, seemingly with little regard for those who might have greater need.

Seven hours later, I was wheeled up to the ward, where I received further treatment and spent the next 24 hours before being discharged. In the six-person bay I was in, four patients were suffering from dementia, and in their confusion, were constantly calling nurses for attention. At one time, I heard the man in the next bed to me, very distressed, asking a nurse where he was. I understand in the whole ward, there were also two patients, with dementia, who had full-time attendants.

I came out of hospital, very grateful for the care I had received, and the way I had been treated with courtesy and friendliness, from cleaners to consultants. Indeed, I am still full of praise. However, the pressure under which all staff have to work is totally unacceptable.

I can't help being cynical, but when watching the BBC report of the parliamentary session where MP Clive Lewis' question about local ambulance services was raised, the almost empty chamber was in direct contrast to the crowded A&E waiting room. A work exchange between MPs and NHS staff might well be a very telling eye-opener, all-round - especially if MPs were subjected to the same sort of abuse and assaults as NHS staff are at certain times.

So, should we as a community, whilst continuing to loudly praise NHS staff, simply sit back, say nothing and just accept things? I think not! Whilst praising, we should be raising a 'commotion' - Norfolk-style, which Robert Kett would have been proud of! The powers that be, need to know (in no uncertain terms), that the people of this country have a right to appropriate, timely treatment when they are injured or sick.

One of the core principles at the founding of the National Health Service in 1948, was that it should be free at the point of use. Now it seems, it has to be as cheap as possible, with the minimum number of individuals and families suffering as a result, so that any furore, soon dies away.

We have also now learned that the NHS is haemorrhaging nurses, with more leaving than joining. How long will it be before the complete National Health Service goes the same bleeding way?