SO THE conflict over how to change our NHS to a seven-day week system is set to continue, as does also the blame game. 

All I know, from my family’s tragic experience, the longer this conflict exist and the more acrid it becomes, the total of weekend victims will continue to rise.

May I first of all put aside the myth that all patients entering hospital on a Friday have to do so because for them it is an emergency. 

From my experience I found the reverse to be truer, that entering hospital on a Friday, it is more likely the outcome will develop into an emergency situation.

My mother entered a hospital in Plymouth on a Friday morning for a pre-arranged minor operation requiring only an overnight stay.

The outcome was that on Sunday she died in utter agony caused by peritonitis due to leaking stitches. 

So over the weekend it went from having a minor op to my brothers and I being asked to give our consent to have Mum’s life support system switched off.

I shall never forget how helpless I felt and being racked by guilt about could I have done more to have saved her.

If that wasn’t traumatic enough my brothers and I set out to discover what went wrong and why.

We were denied an internal review.

Only option left was to take it to the Ombudsman who after a complaints process lasting three years upheld our complaint and recommended a number of changes be made.

The first one being having more staff available. 

Within a few years I read that another patient had died in the same circumstances as Mum over a weekend period.

I again wrote to the Ombudsman.

So a curse on this five-day week system and all that seek to prolong it, and if I may, my advice still would emphatically be if your appointment is for a Friday please cancel it.

TERRY NICHOLASON 
Cirencester