I was affected by the breast cancer screening scandal – but NHS cuts had already convinced me to go to private

Plagued by sleep deprivation because my arthritic joints ached all night, I rang for an appointment with my local GP. The first date available was 14 days away.

After negotiation, I got one in three days, but it was nearly 18 miles away, resulting in a 45-minute drive (no local bus service). Luckily, I own a car, and was able to be free early on a Friday afternoon when most people were at work and children at school.

Most patients in my rural area would not be so lucky, and would have to put up with their health worries, aches and pains for weeks before their 12-minute face-to-face encounter with a GP. Extended waiting times for GP appointments, routine operations and at A&E units have become accepted as part of the ongoing health care crisis.

This week, another scandal hit the NHS: from 2009, failures in a computer programme have meant that almost half a million women aged over 68 were not sent letters offering a final breast cancer screening – and it’s estimated that up to 240 may have died as a result.

Astonishingly, this cock-up went on for years without anyone noticing. Health minister Jeremy Hunt has made a grovelling apology in parliament for these preventable deaths – but, like the scandal involving tainted blood, not one person has lost their job. Families will have lost their grandmothers, but not one member of NHS management will be out of work.

This failure is the latest health scare which directly affects women. After prolonged lobbying by pressure groups, Theresa May has announced an inquiry into the problems resulting from faulty vaginal surgical mesh implants, as well as the pregnancy drug Primodos and sodium valproate, used to treat migraine and bipolar disorder, both of which have been linked to birth defects.

These scandals affect those who complain the least and do the most in our society: ordinary middle-aged and older women. Mums and grannies.

This weekend, you’ll see them, the willing fundraisers, standing outside supermarkets and collecting for cancer charities and palliative care nurses. These women bake the cakes and join the sponsored walks for breast cancer charities. They are the ones who organise jumble sales and craft fairs to raise funds. They are the women that Jeremy Hunt and his faceless managers have let down.

Duncan Selbie, the NHS Manager of Public Health England, was in charge of the screening programme – where’s his apology? PHE found out about the missing letters in January, but said there was “limited risk” to patients. Selbie told Jeremy Hunt’s department six weeks ago – and still they kept quiet. Was it to put helplines in place, or to prepare the face-saving damage limitation exercise?

In those six weeks, more women have probably died. Now the NHS will be spending millions it doesn’t have offering private screenings to the women involved (at a cost of hundreds of pounds per mammogram) and it could be facing a bill of up to £100m in compensation.

Breast cancer is the most common cancer in the UK, affecting one in eight women –almost everyone has lost friends and relatives to this disease. To survive, those affected need early diagnosis and prompt attention, yet many are still diagnosed unacceptably late.

Last week I interviewed the broadcaster Victoria Derbyshire, who has written a moving diary about her experience of the disease and the impact the diagnosis had on her family. My sister and two of my best friends died as a result of cancer and there’s not a single day I don’t think about the C-word.

Maybe Jeremy Hunt and Duncan Selbie don’t have that close connection with the disease – but their belated handling of the crisis reveals another underlying problem with the NHS. Older people (of both sexes) are a burden the NHS management probably wish they didn’t have to deal with: we cost too much, we go on living and needing maintenance and support, and we drain the threadbare resources.

But it’s our money that pays for the NHS; we are stakeholders and deserve respect, rather than the routine cancellation of appointments and operations, all of which makes the last third of our lives as unpleasant as possible when it should be a time for relaxation and reflection.

By the time NHS patients get to their 70s, they are exhausted from dealing with the system. No wonder nearly half a million women didn’t complain or notice that they didn’t get their screening letters; they probably assumed they’d been culled in another cost-cutting exercise.

At 71, I’m in the age group that’s affected and I haven’t received a letter inviting me to have a final mammogram. Luckily, because I have enough money, I’ve paid for regular tests since I was 40. But cancer screening shouldn’t only be available to those with cash – and the NHS screening programme was commendable, offering routine scans between 50 and 70.

Thousands of women will be waking up today worried that their lives have been put at risk by faceless managers, none of whom will be held to account. And the funds used to rectify this failure will directly impact on the NHS care we receive – we’ll all be paying for it, so soon the first GP’s appointment you’ll be getting will be a month away. As for a knee replacement, start saving now: they’ll soon be banned.