The caring professions? They just don't seem to care at all

I don't scrape and scrabble at the coal face of the NHS very often. I was born, I suppose. My mum has great palliative care, but I've contributed £30,000 towards that.

I have a private GP, gynaecol­ogist, two therapists and a dentist, who charges £900 for a root-canal filling. I don't drink, smoke or overeat. I don't have children. I exercise every single day. I've been a vegetarian since the age of 11.

Let us just say that, so far, I have not been a burden. But, on Friday morning, I found I needed the NHS for the first time in about 20 years, and it let me down. Very badly.

Just don't seem to care: The jobsworths in the NHS let Liz Jones down badly when she needed to get vaccines. (Picture posed by model)

I am catching a flight to the Horn of Africa tomorrow, to cover the famine in Somalia. In order to obtain a visa, I am required to be inoculated against hepatitis A and B, yellow fever, typhoid, diphtheria, tetanus, polio and so on. On Thursday, I called my GP, a private GP, in London's Sloane Street.

'Yes, Miss Jones, come in any time.' And so I did. But my doctor could only give me the 'live' vaccine, yellow fever; the other jabs would have to be done the following day. The next morning, back home in Somerset, I called my local GP or 'health centre'.

'Hello!' I said cheerily. 'I am not registered with you, but I live two miles away. I wonder if you could possibly squeeze me in today to complete my jabs for travelling to Africa, and fill in my malaria prescription, as I need to start taking the tablets on Sunday.'

'You are not registered?!' the woman said, clearly appalled I had made her pick up the phone. 'We can't see you then. And we can't fill out a prescription that hasn't been written up by us.'

'But I will pay for the jabs, it only takes a couple of minutes.'

'But the nurse is fully booked. She can't do it. I don't even know if we have the drugs.'

'Can you find out?'

'Well, no. I'd have to ask her. And she can't fit you in.'

'But this is an emergency. I have never bothered you before in the three years I have lived here. Not with a snotty-nosed kid, not with depression, nothing. Never!'

'But we don't have your notes.'

'You don't need my notes.

Lots of people go to walk-in centres. You could telephone my doctor if you're worried about anything.'

'I don't have time to do that. Why don't you go to A&E if it's an emergency?'

'I'm sure they wouldn't classify a routine jab as an emergency. I mean, it's a global crisis. Millions of people are dying and you won't put yourself out to allow me to be seen by a nurse, not even a doctor, for five minutes?'

'No.'

Last week, the boss of the care company Castlebeck, whose Winterbourne View care home in Bristol was exposed by Panorama for practising routine abuse, used the defence that the home was understaffed, and that the employees needed more training.

Of course that is part of the problem, but it doesn't explain all of it. I don't need to be trained to know that it is wrong to slap someone, or ridicule them, or pin them down, or deny them privacy and respect. That is called being a human being. You should not need to be trained to do that.

I always wonder why people who don't like people go into the caring professions. The problems in the health service and in privately-run homes are not always to do with money. Attitude is often the issue.

Abuse: BBC's Panorama filmed residents of the Winterbourne View care home being slapped, kicked, sat on and drenched with water

Andrew Lansley, the Health Secretary, said last week that NHS managers were abusing the system, forcing patients to wait so they either die or go private. The report, by the Co-operation and Competition Panel, said that one trust was insisting patients wait at least 15 weeks for treatment.

Such a time frame is within the 18-week target, but many hospitals can deal with patients more quickly than that. Everyone has become very 'jobsworth', doing only the minimum that is required.

But when you challenge them on their attitude, as I did when I called the 'health centre' and spoke to the receptionist, or manager, or whatever she calls herself, they are shocked at your temerity.

They are too used to being bossy. They call the shots, not you, the patient – or at least potential patient. What would it have cost this woman on Friday morning to have said: 'Sod the protocol – everyone needs to know about this famine, Miss Jones, so I am going to speak to the GP and see what we can do.'