by Edward Leigh MP

During yesterday’s debate on the future of the NHS including the reforms proposed by Andrew Lansley, I pointed out the glaring disparity between the taxpayer’s greater and greater investment in the National Health Service:

Sadly, despite massive increases in funding over fifteen years, there has been an undoubted catastrophic decline in NHS productivity. Does my right hon. Friend accept that many of us on the Government Benches feel that if we are to save the NHS there is no alternative to more co-operation with the private sector, and that he should stick to his guns?

The Health Secretary pointed out in his response that, as a former chair of the Public Accounts Committee, I had ample opportunity to look into the cost effectiveness of this country’s health service and found that productivity had plunged under the Labour government. When Margaret Hodge succeeded me, the PAC still found the same. I hope the Coalition Government holds firm in insisting we get value for money in the NHS — Britain has been taken for a ride for too long.

A few years ago my Hungarian girlfriend, (now wife) woke up needing a doctor. “How much will it cost?” she asked. I laughed at the preposterousness of the question. “This is Britain. It doesn’t cost anything”. But she persisted in asking for cash. “Of course they don’t charge you”, she said, “but I’m not British. I don’t pay any taxes here. I haven’t got any health insurance.”In vain I patiently explained that regardless of all this, there was not the slightest chance that she would be billed for using our NHS. Indeed I doubt whether our GP surgery even has a till or a means of collecting money. So certain was she that no country would be so stupid as to allow anyone to walk in and use its health service, that I had to give her twenty pounds before she walked down for her appointment.
   
Herein lies a major problem afflicting the NHS, or rather the Inter- National Health Service. We will treat literally anyone in the world who happens to be passing, with not a thought for their right to receive very costly treatment, which has been paid for by British taxpayers.
    
The government funded “Visit Britain” website which is supposed to generate money for our nation, actually advertises to the world that “you are eligible for free emergency treatment in the Accident and Emergency departments of National Health Service hospitals.”! It goes on to state that foreign visitors (with many exceptions) will be charged for after-care. But of course nobody ever pays. An official might make a half-hearted attempt to chase up a large debt from someone living in the third world who has given a false name and address. He or she will fail.
   
Other countries do it differently.  We Brits are expected to have our own health insurance when travelling outside the EU. The travel section of the Foreign Office website makes it quite clear that even if not compulsory, for a number of countries it is “absolutely essential” as their own healthcare systems are so poor. Bizarrely, we have reciprocal arrangements with some of those very countries!
   
We cannot expect doctors and nurses to refuse treatment to those in need just because they have no right to it. Nobody would want to see people dying in the streets though lack of medical treatment, not even when they have flagrantly abused the system – for example by arriving here 34 weeks pregnant from the other side of the world in order to have their baby in an NHS hospital, as many do.
   
A simple measure would put a halt to much of this abuse. We should insist that absolutely everyone arriving here from outside the EU, should be in receipt of a verifiable health insurance document that could be checked by immigration officials.
  
At a stroke we would put an end to a great deal of freeloading on our public services.
   
The idea is so simple it needs no more than a sentence to sum it up. It would be fair and would do no more than to bring Britain into line with the rest of the world. It would save the NHS tens of millions of pounds each year which could instead be spent treating British patients.
  
The phrase “free at the point of use” is usually associated with the Beveridge report which led to the establishment of the NHS. Had they foreseen the era of cheap international travel those writing it would surely have wanted to add the words – “to all who are entitled.”
  
I never did find out what happened to the £20 I gave the future Mrs Davies. It certainly didn’t go to the GP.
  
 

                        Patricia Hewitt                        Mrs Doubtfire

I once had a meeting with Nanny Hewitt in her office. I was early. Her PPS probably wishes I hadn’t been. The office wasn’t very big, but did contain a sofa, which was adorned with a duvet and pillows. The sofa was in fact, an Emin-esque unmade bed.

When Nanny Hewitt arrived for the meeting, she sat and ate a packet of sandwiches as she talked, literally. You would think all good nannies would know not to talk with their mouth full wouldn’t you?

She was obviously overstressed and overworked.

It takes some effort to bring about the almost complete collapse of the NHS. Making 17,000 redundancies, ensuring there are no jobs for junior doctors, extending waiting lists, emptying the bank accounts of all the PCTs , cancelling operations, closing down new hospitals – just as they are about to open the doors. This is a lot for one woman to do; she obviously doesn’t have time for sleep.

Another thing a nanny will do is always make you say sorry when you are in the wrong.

Patricia Hewitt must go down in history as the worst Secretary of State for the NHS. It isn’t just what she has done to the NHS, what makes it so much worse is that voice.

It’s the combination of the voice, the actions, the inability to appear anything other than android, and to come across as probably the most uncaring woman on the planet, that has made her job so untenable.If she just said a little sorry, like nanny would make you do, or just showed a little human womanly kindness, she would be in an entirely different position. After all, we can all forgive someone who makes mistakes, to err is human – and there of course is the point.