EU not to blame for NHS woes

According to certain readers the EU is to blame for the failures in the NHS.Stuart Parr (Starmail, November 20) claims it has issued a directive removing the individual opt-out from the Working Time Directive, hereby forcing hospitals to cut services.

This is not true. The EU cannot just issue a directive and “dictate” it is observed. It can only propose directives for agreement. There is no such agreement on revision to the Working Time Directive, and the individual opt-out therefore remains in place.

R Knight (November 17) says the merger of the PRH and RSH is because the EU has insisted such services are regionalised. This is further nonsense. The EU has no such powers, and no such purpose.

Philip Bushill-Matthews MEP

Firstly, I was told by the person who wrote the proposals for the cuts to paediatric services at the PRH that they had to downgrade the service because the EU had removed the opt-out clause for medical staff in the Working Time Directives. Who would you believe? A eurofederalist MEP or a manager at the hospital?

Secondly, the EU dictates many laws and the British government is unable to veto a large number of them. In fact, the day this appeared in the Shropshire Star (Wednesday) I received an email regarding the EU removing the derogation on British pleasure boats using red diesel from January 2007. The British government cannot veto this decision. The British government is currently trying to convince the EU that forcing British motorists to use their lights at all times will endanger more motorcyclists than it saves motorists and is therefore a bad idea. They have to convince the EU now because they are unable to veto the directive.

Thirdly, the EU issues all funding through regional structures.  It also dictates that regional government must be put in place in all member states.  The regionalisation of the NHS is simply an extension of the general regionalisation forced on us by the EU.

Aren’t the Tories supposed to be eurosceptic?