Real life | 15 June 2017

And so, as it must, the pilgrimage to find a local GP surgery begins. This is a great British tradition, and I have been honoured in my lifetime to have taken part in many and varied official registerings at different NHS surgeries.

Having been ceremoniously relieved of my first GP in London, and invited to find another one because they had redrawn the boundaries, last year I was on the road again after they closed the second one down.

I found myself at a surgery on a sink estate where the first language — and indeed the second, third and fourth languages — appeared not to be British and where I was asked if I would like a female chaperone because of all the religious objections I was likely to have.

I never actually got an appointment there, although I did secure an emergency phone consultation with a doctor, after my prescription for strong antihistamine ran out.