So the Government wants to charge people for missing hospital appointments.

Let’s hope the Assembly is never controlled by people so ignorant of real life - although the Welsh Conservatives are threatening to prove they really are that thick.

My late mother missed two hospital appointments. No, I tell a lie. We were there. It was the doctors who missed them.

The first, apparently, was because the consultant had been called away to the operating theatre following a road smash. Seemed reasonable to me, although I was surprised to then receive a new date some six weeks away.

I was angry and made it known when on the second date there was no consultant and they had spoken to my brother by phone trying to stop us.

All we needed was a formal go-ahead for mother to see hearing aid technicians.

After I insisted the hospital must be full of capable doctors we eventually got to see the department’s second man, but his notes only gave details of a visit months before and he only found out what she really wanted because I had gate-crashed the consultation.

So, Iain Duncan-Smith, that’s two appointments you owe me.

And what about when I took her for checks at Morriston Hospital’s fracture clinic? They were there, but owned very few chairs and had patients spilling out into the corridor.

After finding one for the old lady I spent the morning sat on the floor.

So, Andrew RT Davies, if you want payment for missed appointments your first priority will be to pay me for three.

Then there’s all the other people who were turned away from those clinics- and it would be stupid for NHS money to be wasted. Let the politicians pay.