It's not our job to fix the Welsh government's bad decisions

The NHS in Shropshire is proposing to cut A&E and acute paediatric services in Telford's Princess Royal Hospital to save money.

David Wright, the MP for the Telford constituency, has launched a "Say no to Shrewsbury" campaign calling for cuts to be made at Shrewsbury rather than Telford which has prompted Daniel Kawczynski, the MP for the Shrewsbury & Atcham constituency, to campaign for the cuts to be made at Telford instead. Daniel Kawczynski has even tried to enlist the help of Rhoddri Morgan, the First Minister of Wales, because patients from Mid Wales would be inconvenienced by cuts to the Royal Shrewsbury Hospital.

The suggestion that one hospital can cope with all A&E and acute paediatric referrals is ridiculous in itself but to suggest that they should be centralised in Shrewsbury when Telford has the largest and fastest growing population in the county is unbelievable.

What is best for Shropshire is for the services to stay at both hospitals or for a new hostpial to be built between Shrewsbury and Telford. But if there is a requirement to centralise services then they should be centralised in Telford, not in Shrewsbury.

The problem with this suggestion, though, is that it inconveniences patients from Mid Wales who don't have a local Welsh hospital. The NHS in Shropshire has cited this as a reason to keep services in Shrewsbury and the Daniel Kawczynski MP has also used it as an excuse to keep services at the hospital in his constituency.

And this is the problem with so-called English MPs - they aren't English MPs at all, they are British MPs. On balance, taking into account the interests of patients from Mid Wales, it makes most sense to keep services at Shrewsbury and it is the interests of those Welsh patients that Daniel Kawczynski is taking into account and using as leverage to save services at the Royal Shrewsbury Hospital.

But the people of Shrewsbury & Atcham elected Daniel to represent their interests, not the interests of Welsh people. In Wales they elect Welsh Assembly Members to deal with health as it's a devolved area and it is the Welsh government that has a responsibility to provide adequate health care in Wales, not the British government and not the NHS in Shropshire.

I'm not suggesting for a moment that someone from outside of Shropshire should be refused treatment at any of our Shropshire hospitals but there is a difference between treating someone from another English county, whose health provision is the responsibility of the same government that our own is in Shropshire and treating someone from another country whose health provision is the responsibility of another government - one that, crucially, is funded separately to the English NHS and given more money from the British Treasury to provide services.

This isn't a case of sour grapes or being anti-Welsh, it's simply that the provision of health services to Welsh people is the responsibility of the Welsh government and if services do need to be cut in Shropshire then those cuts should be made in such a way that it provides the least detriment to the people of Shropshire. If it leaves the Welsh with worse health provision then I'm afraid it is up to the Welsh people to petition the Welsh government to invest some of their health budget in building a hospital in Mid Wales.

The Welsh people asked for their own government and they got it. They have to live with the consequences of that decision and one of those consequences is that they can't keep relying on the English to pick up the pieces when their government makes the wrong decision. Not investing in health care in Mid Wales was a bad decision but fixing the consequences of that bad decision is up to the Welsh government, not the NHS in Shropshire.