People's expectations of hospitals are high - and rightly so.

They are entitled to expect standards of cleanliness to be every bit as scrupulous as in their own homes, and obviously in certain critical areas, like where operations are carried out or particularly vulnerable patients are to be found, a lot higher.

And I’m talking about the average home as well, not the small percentage of households in most neighbourhoods where basic hygiene is so low that the RSPCA would be concerned about the risk to the health of family pets.

So the figures this week showing the number of rats, cockroaches, mice, flying rats (pigeons), assorted insects and other vermin apparently at large and thriving in Royal Blackburn and Burnley General hospitals is rather alarming.

Even if you accept that cleaning staff are likely to be in a permanent state of war against such things in a largely Victorian institution like Burnley General, it is surprising to see that the same problems exist in a brand, spanking new building like the one in Blackburn.

But having said all that, I have to say that we British really don’t realise how lucky we are.

We are obsessed with animals and insects which in relative terms are ridiculously non-threatening compared with the truly deadly creatures that inhabitants of so many other countries have to put up with.

Many grown men and women become quivering wrecks at the mere sight of a spider the size of a 10p piece wondering how to get out of a bath it has just crawled into via the wastewater pipe.

I can understand arachnophobia if we are talking about a menacing tarantula which appears every now and then in a box of bananas or the dread of all Australians, a deadly poisonous red back spider sitting, waiting for the unaware on the toilet seat!

But without hours of delicate web building our spiders genuinely cannot hurt a fly. Even our ants are like a dwarf variety up against the scary, half-inch long ones you will find in North Africa.

With the exception of the adder, now as rare as hens teeth, our snakes don’t squeeze or have venomous bites – in fact it’s difficult to think of anything in our animal kingdom which poses a serious threat to our wellbeing apart of course from the health hazards posed by rats.

I may have led a sheltered life but I have watched cockroaches scuttling around hotel rooms and even restaurants on the Asian continent which are at least ten times bigger than anything to be found in this country.

It amuses me to hear of holiday complaints from Brits who go to tropical climes and kick up a fuss about having to live cheek by jowl with the exotic wildlife which has always lived there.

I’ve even heard of folk protesting about the presence of lizards which actually do a fair job eating some of the insects which can and do bite.

There might be cause for some complaint regarding hospitals but let’s keep our obsession with creepy crawlies in perspective.