Dear MP,
I am writing to you on behalf of the Campaign for an English Parliament’s members in Shropshire, some of whom are constituents of yours.There have been three examples of NHS apartheid this week:
- The Welsh Assembly has announced that it is abolishing parking charges at all Welsh hospitals. In Scotland hospital parking charges are capped at £3 per day but only 6% of hospitals charge. In Northern Ireland, only 20% of hospitals charge for parking. In England, 92% of hospitals charge for parking and a significant number of hospitals are netting in excess of £1m per year in parking charges.
- An inhaler has been developed that is absorbed into the body much easier than current mainstream inhalers which will help the estimated three quarters of asthmatics who don’t have the lung capacity to take inhalers properly to get their medication more effectively. The Scottish Medical Consortium has approved the inhaler for use on the NHS free of charge. The inhaler is not available in England with the laughably named National Institute for Clinical Excellence (NICE – ironic isn’t it?) promising a decision some time later in the year.
- Prescription charges are rising once again at around five times the rate of inflation. But only in England. In Wales all prescriptions are free of charge. In Scotland 93% are dispensed free of charge and prescription charges for the remaining 7% are capped at £5.
The superior health service experienced in Wales and Scotland is only possible because they have their own devolved government looking after their interests and ever-increasing multi-billion pound subsidies from the English taxpayer courtesy of successive Scottish Chancellors. Do you think that your constituents in England deserve the same health service that the rest of the UK experiences or do you think that they deserve to continue paying more and more for an inferior health service whilst continuing to subsidise the superior service enjoyed by the rest of the UK? What do you intend to do to highlight the racial discrimination in the provision of health services in the UK that discriminates against the English majority?
Stuart Parr
Campaign for an English Parliament
Shropshire Branch
