Catching Up With Jane Hunt

#ThingsElliottSays have been catching up with Jane Hunt and the Nottingham Conservatives.

For the past few weeks we have been leafleting and completing local surveys in Leen Valley to hear from residents' views. #ThingsElliottSays is pleased to say that the locals are very supportive of Jane and have also raised a lot of important issues which need solving. The worst part of this whole thing is seeing how quickly the daylight is disappearing in the evening.

Jane has also launched her new website. She is so far focusing on three main campaigns. Jane's 'pot hole patrol' has been very popular. A lot of roads in Nottingham are in need of repair, in many places the Victorian cobbles are showing through. The Conservatives in Government have recognised the problem and have give an extra £617,446 to Nottingham to help.

Jane has said "Investing in Britain’s roads and infrastructure is a key part of the Conservatives’ long-term economic plan to secure a better future for Britain – and this is just one part of that. By fixing Britain’s roads the Conservatives are supporting local businesses, and making life that bit easier for the hardworking people in Nottingham who rely on them to get around."

Jane is also campaigning to get rid of the horrendously unfair Workplace Parking Tax that was introduced by the Labour City Council. This is not only causing business problems, which in turn effect wages and the amount of jobs, but is also meaning employees are often having to pay for parking at their own workplace. How unfair.

Jane has also come out in support of Robert Halfon MPs campaign to 'Stop the Hospital Car Parking Rip Off'. Jane and Rob Halfon is campaigning for hospital car parking in the UK to be free. Hospital car parking fees often effecting the most ill in society and are outrageously priced. The QMC has been highlighted as one of the worst hospitals in the country charging £4 for the first hour. This needs to stop. Jane has thus wrote a letter in the Nottingham Post saying "I am a supporter of reform of car-parking charges at our NHS hospitals, and recent events show we are seeing the change required."

Rob Halfon MP is backing Jane and her campaign in stopping outrageous charges at the QMC.

Partial Victory For 'Stop The Hospital Car Parking Rip-Off' Campaign

#ThingsElliottSays is a great fan of campaigning Conservative MP Robert Halfon who has improved people''s lives across the country. #ThingsElliottSays was thus a big supporter of Rob's latest campaign to 'stop the hospital car parking rip-off'. It is thus pleasant to see a partial victory already for the campaign.

The Government has now changed the rules and regulations surrounding hospital car parking. From now on 'charges should be reasonable for the area'. Concessions should also be offered to groups like disabled people and families of those who are 'gravely ill'. Furthermore, there should be a switch to a pay on exit scheme for car parking.

Jeremy Hunt, the Health Secretary, has said "patients and families shouldn't have to deal with the added stress of unfair parking charges. These clear ground rules set out our expectations, and will help the public hold the NHS to account for unfair charges or practices."

Stop the QMC Parking Rip-Off

It is good to see some change to hospital car parking. The QMC in Nottingham is one of the worst for hospital car parking, charging £4 for the first hour to park. Hopefully this will now change as most people would not think it is a reasonable charge for the area.

The campaign however is not over. #ThingsElliottSays agrees with Rob Halfon MP that car parking should be free at hospitals in the UK. Thus I urge you to sign up to the campaign here to reach this goal hopefully sometime in the near future.

Stop The Hospital Car Parking Rip-Off

Rob Halfon MP, the great campaigning backbencher, has started a new campaign to 'stop the hospital car parking rip-off'. I would ask you to back his campaign to really stick to the NHS principle of 'free at the point of use'.

The one thing I have never properly understood about our healthcare system is the principle of 'free at the point of use'. In my opinion this is a very good principle but in so many cases it isn't actually applied. One of these is hospital parking. Why are we charging ill people or their families to park at hospitals? The government does allow for hospital car parking in England to be free, as it is in Scotland and Wales, so why is it very rare?

Free at the point of use?

The answer to this question from the bods incharge of hospitals/ the government often is that paying for parking covers the cost of having the spaces. But I have never really understood this argument because the NHS is so wasteful it is almost unbelievable. Surely there is enough money in £137 billion institution to pay for hospital parking, which let's face it would be a tiny amount.

It's great to see Rob, pictured here in his famous mustard suit, campaigning on such an important issue to those who are ill and their families.

So how can we pay for parking out of the NHS budget? Rob points out the case on the over use of branded drugs rather than generic drugs in the NHS in his proposals to do something about hospital car parking. But there is of course the obvious answer as well of too much bureaucracy in the NHS. My personal belief is that of the public's, the number of civil servants in the NHS should be as low as possible whilst the amount spent of treatments/ on more doctors and nurses should be increased. The Coalicious government has gone some way to solve this problem but there is still more to do.

£4 to park for the first hour!!!

But if we have to keep hospital car parking we should at least reduce the rates because it is so expensive. My local Nottingham hospital QMC is one of the worst, charging £4 for the first hour of parking. This is an unbelievable cost considering that families need to visit very ill patients or ill patients themselves need to park. Rob Halfon's investigation into hospital car parking has found stories of cancer patients having to cut down on what they eat just to pay for the travelling and parking expense of getting to hospital. It is is obviously unacceptable to force patients onto the breadline by paying for car parking.

I thus urge you to sign Rob's petition to stop the hospital parking rip-off. Why should we force patients or their families to pay so much just to park for a health service which is 'free at the point of use'?

You can view Rob's full proposals here.