It is hard to fully understand the misery Parveen Hussain must have endured over the last 20 years.

The Bradford nurse has suffered from chronic lower back pain following an injury two decades ago.

That pain is so severe she has had to take powerful opiates for the last six years – and they are now causing serious side effects.

But what must make her plight even harder to bear is that while specialist surgery at The Spinal Foundation, a charitable organisation, could make a huge difference to her condition, NHS Bradford and Airedale will not fund it. And that is despite a request from her GP.

Meanwhile, it appears patients from other parts of Yorkshire have had the same surgery at the Foundation with their NHS primary care trusts picking up the bill.

No-one expects the NHS to be able to fund every possible treatment – that would be impossible.

But it is not unreasonable to expect the same treatments to be available to every patient, regardless of where they live.

So-called postcode lotteries have no place in a national health service, yet that appears to be the case here.

And if that is the fault of the system then the system should be changed, even if it will come too late for Mrs Hussain – who has decided to pay the £11,000 cost herself.