The National Health Service is one of the crowning glories of this country and, quite rightly, the envy of much of the rest of the world.

The NHS has its problems, of course – what organisation so vast, with such responsibility and employing such large numbers of people wouldn’t have? But, by and large, it provides a service we should all be very thankful for.

Unlike in other countries – the United States, for example – the spectrum of health care is available to all and largely free. Mostly, but not always. That was what Coun Jan Smithies discovered when a woman living with chronic hip pain got in touch to say that there was a treatment available... but only for private patients. More local people with the condition got in touch after the case was highlighted in the T&A and now they have been told the system is changing.

Private medicine existed long before the NHS, and will always exist as long as there are people who are willing and able to pay a premium for quicker and possibly better healthcare than they would get on the NHS.

But that does not mean that treatment for a condition such as this should be exclusively for those who can pay. Thankfully, the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence has ruled that treatment for this condition should be available on the NHS, and the district’s primary care trust has now informed GPs that operations will now be funded.

While we should indeed be grateful for the NHS and perhaps accept that there will always be a two-tier healthcare system when people who can afford better will always seek better, decisions like this do go some way to levelling the playing field.