My advice to Kate during her stay at The London Clinic, by an ex-patient: Enjoy the peace, privacy and the cake!

It's the Princess of Wales's fourth day in hospital – and three days after her operation – so I hope she's feeling well enough to choose between the salt and pepper squid with aioli, the steamed ginger and soy sea bass and the porcini and wild mushroom risotto. , perhaps with a side of truffle fries, or – more likely – a 'Harley Street Blossom', a smoothie of coconut water, mango, kale and mint.

At least those were some of the choices on the menu at The London Clinic when I spent five nights there in 2021, including undergoing abdominal surgery.

The food, created by Chef Paul O'Brien and all served on silver trolleys, absolutely spoils you, and honestly I would go back for that alone.

No one wants to be in the hospital without family, but many of us – especially mothers of small children – would say that hand-rolled tortellini and a glass of wine in bed, cooked and served by someone else, tends to make things worse. bearable.

I had to undergo groundbreaking surgery to repair a fourth degree tear (the worst you can get). I had suffered the birth of my daughter, my first and only child, in an NHS hospital a year earlier.

Dimple Mistry was also admitted to The London Clinic for five nights in May 2021 after the surgery

Police officers stand guard outside the London Clinic, where Kate, Princess of Wales, is recovering from surgery

I had insurance through my work as a video editor, and my advisor suggested The London Clinic, where she could employ the services of a specialist abdominal surgeon.

With seven large operating rooms and three additional theaters, it is a hospital used by private surgeons in a variety of specialties.

It is also the hospital where the royals go. Prince Philip spent his 92nd birthday in 2013 at the clinic while recovering from exploratory abdominal surgery, and Princess Margaret had a skin lesion removed there in 1980.

Political and acting royalty have also been patients – President Kennedy was diagnosed with Addison's disease, a disorder of the adrenal glands, at the clinic in 1947, and Elizabeth Taylor underwent knee surgery in 1963. Prime Minister Anthony Eden had his gallbladder removed there. 1953, when he was Foreign Secretary, and our current Foreign Secretary, Lord Cameron, was born there.

Alarmingly, the latest Care Quality Commission report, published in December 2021, rated the clinic's surgical department as 'requires improvement', citing a particular concern about leadership, but I couldn't fault my own experience. (Overall, the hospital, which opened in 1932 and houses a leading cancer center opened by the late Queen Elizabeth II in 2010, is rated 'Good'.)

My operation lasted five hours. It was painful and grueling and although I consider myself quite independent, I needed sympathy and attention in the aftermath. The London Clinic made me feel like a patient to be cared for, rather than a number on a medical chart at the foot of my bed. Unlike the wood-paneled, upholstered King Edward VII, where Kate spent three nights with extreme morning sickness hyperemesis gravidarum while pregnant with George in 2012, The London Clinic looks like any other modern, well-manicured hospital.

At breakfast I could choose from the usual cereals and toast, but unlike the NHS I could also have chosen from a range of pastries, cooked breakfast items – including omelettes and pancakes – and even avocado on toast

The food, created by Chef Paul O'Brien and all served on silver trolleys, absolutely spoils you, and honestly I would go back just for that

Kate will certainly enjoy the privacy, which feels impenetrable. I'm not sure I heard another patient in the five nights there, and I certainly didn't see one

The operating floor rooms have cupboards and desks and the toiletries in the bathrooms are hotel favorite Molton Brown, but it's not quite the Ritz. What it is, however, is peaceful.

Kate will certainly enjoy the privacy, which feels impenetrable. I'm not sure I heard another patient in the five nights there, and I certainly didn't see one.

Because this is a scheduled surgical procedure, and not an outpatient, you will be taken or driven from reception to your room and vice versa, seeing only those directly involved in your admission. Yes, you can walk around the hospital if you want – although Covid reigns supreme when I was there and paid for research, if I could have walked – but I was happy to stay in my own pampered bubble.

I played with the bedside controls that allowed me to change the temperature in the room, light up the stars in the ceiling, and open and close the blinds of Marylebone, London's historic medical district.

There is a concierge service that can help you arrange trips, theater shows and even restaurants. Personally, I got very used to the cake served with room service afternoon tea.

More seriously, what I found at The London Clinic was a focus on my pain levels that I honestly believe the NHS could learn from.

I have had several surgeries within the government system and, in my experience, waiting for pain medication when the last hope has worn off is often traumatic. Here I was constantly replenished. Nurses showed up regularly to ask me about my pain and give me what I asked for. No one turned an eye on me and told me to wait.

We don't know what surgery the Princess of Wales had at the clinic, but I imagine she will need the same kind of rigorous, effective pain management that I do.

That, combined with the ability to sleep – no noisy patients within earshot, no sweltering temperatures in a brightly lit ward – is why people pay the thousand or so euros a night it costs. If only the NHS had the resources to provide the same environment.

People have accused me of being superficial for appreciating the more trivial elements of my stay at The London Clinic – the avocado on toast for breakfast, the scented toiletries, the fact that a nurse offered to wash my hair for me – but in fact it is those touches that humanize the experience and restore the dignity that is so easily lost in the hospital.

Every nurse I encountered introduced themselves by name, told me what they were going to do to me and why, and asked if it hurt when they did it. Not once was I left alone as I violently vomited in my room after surgery. One time, a nurse couldn't find a vein to draw blood from, and instead of poking and prodding me, she immediately called in an older colleague to help.

This is important. As the Princess of Wales may have discovered, when you had to have major surgery at a relatively young age – I was 33; she is 42 – it is not only physically challenging, but also comes as a psychological shock.

The good health you took for granted suddenly seems terribly fragile.

In my case, the birth injury was very painful, leaving me with long-lasting consequences and a stoma that could not be repaired for months. What you need is calm, unhurried medical staff, who treat you as a person and not as a series of symptoms or something they don't really have time for.

Of course you can also find the same kind of care within the NHS, but not as often, in my fairly extensive experience.

So let's hope Kate has recovered enough to enjoy the same five-star treatment. I look back on my stay not with fondness but with relief and gratitude. And I'm sure the doctors and nurses at The London Clinic are working around the clock to ensure she will feel the same about hers.