NO-one in their right mind enjoys staying in hospital.

It’s something forced on people because they desperately need a significant operation or because they are seriously ill and must be closely monitored and hopefully made better.

If they are physically able to, most patients would prefer to go home to recuperate following surgery rather than have to hang around, extremely bored, in bed on a ward – and in some parts of the country also run the risk of picking one of those potentially fatal bugs which lurk in large institutions.

I’m fortunate enough not to have had to stay overnight in a hospital ward for more than 30 years – and then only because of a system which seemed to exist purely for the convenience of consultants.

I had recently returned to Britain from several years living abroad and found myself with excruciating toothache and a swollen jaw that was locking up.

After quite a quest to find an NHS dentist who would agree to see me, as I was not on anyone’s list, I eventually got into a surgery and was given a note to present myself at the nearest hospital.

I had a large impacted wisdom tooth which had infected my gum and had to be removed. The job apparently needed to be done in a hospital theatre.

I went to the hospital (not in Lancashire) and to my surprise was told to come back with an overnight bag.

I then spent 24 hours sitting around in pyjamas on a ward in which I was surrounded by fellow patients at least twice my age most of whom had undergone, or were awaiting, major arterial surgery.

My jaw ache was nothing compared to what these chaps were suffering and I took on the role of unofficial ward orderly getting drinks, newspapers and running whatever errands I could for them.

Almost to confirm the uneasy feeling that I was there under false pretences, on the headboard of the bed was a sign which proclaimed ‘Dental patient’.

The point of all this is that I spent nearly two days sitting around purely so I was ready and waiting whenever the consultant decided he would come into the hospital and whip out the offending tooth.

You didn’t have to be a management consultant to recognise that there had to be more efficient ways of running things.

And that’s why it was good to read last week that East Lancashire’s new “surgical triage unit”, opened earlier this month, is already helping to ease the pressure on hospital beds in Blackburn and Burnley.

We are told that the unit fast-tracks patients who only need “minor procedures” and most are able to go home within 24 hours. “No-one else is working like this. It’s a unique system,” said one of the main medics involved.

That’s great news.

But why has it taken doctors and an army of NHS managers so many, many years to put such a commonsense idea into practice?