Hello, I'm Natasha Froze, and this is Spectator Out Loud. Each week, we ask a few of the writers from the magazine to read their pieces.

Coming up, we have Mary Wakefield on why she thinks the NHS is broken.

Jenny McCartney on productivity gurus

and Robert Gore Langton on Richard Burton's botched hamlet.

First up, Mary Wakefield.

I was having tea with my neighbour in her second floor flat

when a man, a stranger, appeared in the room.

This is quite a regular occurrence surrounded Alice's.

She's deaf, and she can't really walk so any number of agency staff have access to her front door key.

They materialise wearing gloves, and usually a face mask.

And because Alice relies on lip reading, she hasn't a clue what they're about to do to her.

Is it bath time, injection time?

It's fun to be housebound and old.

This time, the man had a clipboard, which he consulted then said,

We're going to hospital.

Alice turned to me.

What did he say? Over the years,

she and I have worked out a decent way of communicating. Most lay through eyebrow raises.

What's the world coming to? And shrugs? What can you do? This was not in our repertoire.

So I turned to the man and asked, Going to hospital, what for?

He looked at the clipboard again.

She has an outpatient appointment.

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