Emma Dent: getting on the hospital ladder?

The company claimed 15 per cent would pay up to£10,000 extra. Now, no offence to the good people of Combined Insurance, but speaking as someone who may (I say may, with fingers and toes crossed) be poised on the edge of home ownership, I think this is nonsense.

A good school is another matter - parents in a neighbourhood close to me regularly shell out an arm and a leg for homes near an incredibly popular comprehensive school. I'm sure many readers will feel their pain.

But a hospital? People with chronic conditions may, I can concede, want to knock some time off their travelling for regular hospital visits. But for most of the population who enjoy good health it seems a stretch too far. Most of us think that we will enjoy good health forever. And wanting close proximity to an accident and emergency department is surely only a necessary selling point for the accident prone or perhaps particularly anxious parents.

Obviously for hospital staff this is another matter. We all know how difficult it can be for them to live within a reasonable commute of where they work. This is doubly hard to achieve when the hospital happens to be in a part of town seen as a desirable place to live, or even in a part of the country where a shoebox-sized studio flat costs an unreasonable sum.

Moreover, being a good or even excellent hospital does not guarantee being situated in an area many people would want to live in. I can think of several where, frankly, I would not move to the neighbourhood if you paid me (although these areas' residents might well say the same about mine).

For my own part I can safely say that of all the factors governing where - at some point in the hopefully not too distant future - we are going to buy a home, the nearest hospital will not be part of my decision making.

And anyway, in this age of choice, I can choose whichever hospital I like. Can't I?