My family’s experience of the local hospital has been mixed. Sometimes it is impressive; at others it falls below the standard one would expect in the capital of a developed country. Our rule of thumb is that it’s much safer to get sick in Cumbria, where my wife’s parents live.

Although we have had our fair share of dashes to Accident and Emergency, they have been not been so frequent as to constitute a statistically rigorous study of the local facilities. Still, such studies do exist, and one recently published investigation suggests that patients in London have indeed been suffering unduly.