THE National Health Service has its fair share of critics - but one patient is so impressed with the care she received in Dorset that she has written to the government.

Personal assistant Lyn Allen-Rowlandson went to her GP last year after developing a swelling on her neck. She was referred to an ear, nose and throat specialist at Poole Hospital, who took some tissue samples during a minor operation.

The diagnosis was that the swelling on her neck was a secondary cancerous tumour and the primary was in her lungs.

"An awful lot of things were going through my mind. I was quite shocked. After that it all seemed to take off - I hardly had a chance to let things settle down in my mind and there I was having treatment," she said.

There were only 18 days between Lyn's investigative surgery last September and the start of her chemotherapy treatment at the Dorset Cancer Centre in Poole Hospital.

That was followed by radiotherapy, through which she was able to continue her full-time job with a Southampton civil engineering company. Her treatment finished in February and she is now on three-monthly checks.

Mother-of-two Lyn, 52, of Barton-on-Sea, accepts that her cancer was probably caused by smoking, although she only smoked 10 mild cigarettes a day before her illness.

"What alerted me was the secondary growth. Up until then, as far as I was concerned, there was nothing wrong with me," she said. "When they found the primary, they were quite surprised. They expected to find it somewhere in the lymphatic system," she said. "It was 3cm by 2cm and on the x-rays it looked like a couple of wisps of cotton wool or a spider's web. It was something you could hardly see, yet it was life-threatening."

In her letter to Parliamentary Under-Secretary for Health Hazel Blears, Lyn said: "I hardly had time to take in what was happening to me. But on every occasion when I visited the Dorset Cancer Centre, the staff were very kind, understanding, helpful, caring, professional and efficient.

"The quality of care I received throughout my course of treatment was extremely high.

"I also do not believe the standard of treatment could have been improved upon under a private health scheme."

She added: "The last time I had reason to need the NHS in any serious way was 27 years ago when my eldest child was born. After all the bad press the NHS receives I was relieved to find out that it does still work well and efficiently and I have nothing but praise for the staff of Poole Hospital and in particular the Dorset Cancer Centre."

Lyn has given up smoking and wishes she had never started when she was 16. "The only thing I can say is it's not worth the risk," she said.

Her message to other smokers? "Just be aware you can never take it for granted that it won't happen to you."