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.

BBC At The QMC Talking About 'The Hosiptal Car Parking Rip Off'

The BBC daily Politics were today talking about the 'Hospital Car Parking Rip Off' launched by Conservative MP Robert Halfon. I'm a big supporter of this campaign and would advise you to sign the petition to stop hospital car parking charges in England.

Rob Halfon speaking in his fantastic 'mustard' suit in Parliament.

They also went to Nottingham to talk to users of the QMC car park about whether they though Hospitals should charge for parking. They went to QMC specifically because it is one of the worst offenders when it comes charging high rates for parking. If you are ill or going to see an ill person you need to pay £4 for the first hour of parking at the QMC. I think this is a bit of a disgrace really. We should not be stealth taxing the sick and the families of the sick.

The QMC should not charge £4 for the first hour just to park

I have wrote about my full thoughts on the 'Hospital Car Parking Rip Off' here.



 I would again urge you to support Rob's campaign here.

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.

Horsemeat, Obesity Miracle Cure

A very interesting set of statistics came out today. According to Sky News 58% of people have abandoned buying processed meat and sales at butchers have increased by over 20% due to the recent discovery that horse is the most eaten meat in the UK. This is obviously partially caused by there not being as much processed horse burgers about with half of them seemingly removed from the shelves. It is clear to see though that there is a genuine consumer switch to real meat products (even kebab houses are switching to real meat from the usual Donner to save their businesses). Perhaps it is too early to tell, but if this continues, we are in for some real government savings on the health budget.

This how savings could be achieved. People who shop at butchers/ buy real meat have to spend more money, because meat is more expensive. Even an increase in meat production from increased demand would not lower prices enough. People are thus on the whole going to be eating less red meat which is healthier. Also eating real/butchers meat is healthier than processed meat because it contains less hidden hydrogenated fats and all that malarkey. Now I predict that 58% in the next 5 years will not have stuck with abandoning processed meat, but a fair portion will have. 

Obviously there is going to be a saving on the NHS and welfare budget because of this. But it’s probably not going to be enough to stop their budgets growing experientially until the state is nothing more than a glorified wheelchair. So what I suggest is this. As people hate Horsemeat make sure, like the statutory 42% of meat needed to deem a sausage a sausage, that any processed meats that are not above say 50% in meat content contain 10% horse. That way people will eat less of this meat and this will save us billions. Not a very free market thing to do on the face of it but saving the public coffers a mint from a lot less fat people in the future as no one seems to want to gorge on horse.

If only the idea was workable.

P.S. For all those who actually want to know, I actually like Horse I had it in France and it was fine, I personally find it odd how the British public view it as the meat of the devil.