Archive for Apartheid

Shropshire & Telford NHS Trust loses £2m per year treating Welsh patients

The following letter has been sent to the press in the West Midlands and Shropshire MPs:

Tom Taylor, Chief Executive of the Shrewsbury & Telford NHS Trust, has confirmed what the Shropshire branch of the Campaign for an English Parliament has been saying for the last couple of years – that treating Welsh patients in Shropshire hospitals is costing millions of pounds that could be spent treating English patients.

Mr Taylor says that treating Welsh patients in the Royal Shrewsbury Hospital and the Princess Royal Hospital in Telford is costing the Trust £2m per year because of differences in funding and targets.

The Campaign for an English Parliament doesn’t have a problem with Welsh patients being treated in English hospitals but the NHS Trusts involved have a responsibility to ensure that in treating patients from another country they don’t compromise the treatment of patients living in England. It isn’t unreasonable to expect the Welsh government to pay the going rate for medical treatment in England, especially when in some cases they are entitled to medication in English hospitals that English patients aren’t allowed simply because they are Welsh. Who says the world had seen the end of apartheid when white rule ended in South Africa?

The differences in medical treatment are a result of the botched devolution settlement introduced by Labour in 1997 which gave Scotland and Wales their own governments to handle domestic affairs but left the same English affairs in the hands of British MPs representing all four home nations.

Mr Taylor said that it would be much easier for the Trust if the “English Parliament” made Wales pay the going rate and said “this can only be resolved through the financial allocations between the Government of England and the devolved Welsh Assembly”. The fact that Mr Taylor believes there is an “English Parliament” or a “Government in England” to represent English interests when England hasn’t had a government for over 300 years shows a disturbing lack of understanding of the reason why his hospitals are losing so much money every year. Like most of us in England, Mr Taylor and the Shropshire & Telford NHS Trust would be benefit enormously from the creation of an English Parliament to represent the interests of English people like the Scottish Parliament and Welsh Assembly do for Scottish and Welsh people.

Stuart Parr

Shropshire Branch

Campaign for an English Parliament

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Tory Turncoat

A lot of people I talk to were of the opinion that Camoron would ditch the proposed English Votes on English Matters/English Grand Committee idea once they got into power.  How wrong they were.

David Cameron is poised to draw back from proposing to slap an all-out ban on Scottish MPs debating and voting on so-called English-only legislation in a “compromise” move, according to a well-placed senior party source.

[…]

Mr Cameron will reject the so-called East Lothian Answer proposed by Sir Malcolm Rifkind, the former Scottish Secretary, involving the setting up of a stand-alone English grand committee.

[…]

But the senior party source claimed Mr Cameron supported the method of an English-only bill being debated exclusively by English MPs at just its key committee stage. While Scots, Welsh and Northern Irish MPs could debate and vote on the legislation at the later stages of a bill, they would not vote against what English MPs had overwhelmingly decided at the scrutiny stage of an English-only bill.

This solution, he added, would enable all MPs to have a say and a vote on a matter.

And how exactly does this address the West Lothian Question?  How does it attempt to bring any semblance of fairness, equality or democratic accountability to the governance of England?  It doesn’t of course because for some unknown reason David the fucking moron can’t get it through his thick poncy skull that SCOTLAND DOESN’T VOTE CONSWERVATIVE.  It is in England that the Conswervatives will get elected and it is English people that they need to concentrate their efforts on.

Camoron is a liability, an absolute fucking cretin.  Every time he opens his stupid mouth the Conswervatives drop god knows how many points in the popularity charts.  His only saving grace was that he appeared to recognise that the West Lothian Question is morally and democratically wrong.  Whether he still thinks it’s wrong or not I don’t know but if he does then he’s not interested in sorting it out.  For too long the English have been treated as voting fodder for the Brit-Scot Nationalists.  David “I’ve got Scottish blood coursing through my veins” Camoron is no different.  To be honest, I’d rather Liebour got back into power than that lying, turncoat piece of shit Camoron – at least when Liebour refuse to allow England parity with the rest of the UK, we can point at them and say “but that’s not fair, you gave it to Scotland”.  If the Conswervatives get in they’ll just go on about how Liebour left them in this mess and there’s no workable solution and ever so sorry but we’ll have to continue to treat you like third class citizens in your own country at the mercy of the anglophobic whims of foreign politicians because that’s good for Britain.

Britain, Britain, Britain.  Fuck Britain, I want out.

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More health apartheid

On Monday I pointed out two examples of NHS discrimination in England.

The third example of NHS discrimination this week was announced today – the price of a prescription in England will rise to £7.10 per item.

Meanwhile, in Scotland prescription charges are capped at £5 with 93% being dispensed free of charge.  In Wales, all prescriptions are free of charge.

Not only do the English have to pay for their own prescriptions, they have to pay for Scottish and Welsh peoples’ prescriptions as well through the forced multi-billion pound subsidy taken from the English taxpayer under the Barnett Formula.

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