Cross Border Health Services for Wales

Written by Kirsty Williams AM and published in Mid Wales Journal on Tue 22nd Jul 2008

The Welsh Affairs Committee's interim report on the 'Provision of Cross Border Health Services for Wales' has at long last acknowledged what so many of us have been shouting about for years - that Welsh borderland patients are treated as second class citizens compared to their English counterparts and do not receive the same quality of access to healthcare. The reports findings will not be of no surprise; namely that patient's needs and not funding must be at the centre of Welsh health provision and that Welsh patients must have access to quality health services as close to their home as possible. I am sure like me you will welcome the reports calls for a permanent protocol on commissioning and funding cross-border Health Services and clarity for cross-border performance targets. But I will be even more delighted to see our two Governments pay more than just lip service to the review and actually act upon its suggestions. I fear that as it stands the Daffodil curtain put up by the One Wales Government is a barrier to collaboration between Westminster and Cardiff and it is Welsh borderland patients who are loosing out.

Along the borderlands there are three major issues that must be addressed with urgency. The first is Welsh patients being refused treatment in England and instead having to travel further and wait longer to have treatment in Wales. The second is Welsh patients in English hospitals receiving a poorer level of service than their English equivalents and very often having to wait substantially longer for treatment. The third is Welsh patients, who in some cases have been receiving specialist treatment for years at English hospitals, are suddenly being told that they will now have to receive this treatment in Wales. In many cases due to the size of our country and the size of our health service this specialist treatment is simply not available in Wales and we must accept that it has to be provided by English hospitals.

It is both natural and welcome that policy will diverge post devolution and we have a Welsh Health Service that has many strengths and advantages to that in England, but a lack of joined up policy is leading to borderland patients getting a very poor deal particularly where specialist treatment is needed. I hope that this report will not fall on deaf ears as our cries have for so long, I hope that the clout and authority that lies behind a report from a respected committee such as this will mean that the Assembly Government cannot cover its ears and turn its back but will now have no alternative but to begin addressing these issues. I for one will continue my persistent calls for the Assembly Government to once and for all put patient's needs at the heart of their health provision and not a misguided sense of nationalism which has strengthened under the One Wales Government and which is damaging our nation from within. Let us use devolution alongside collaboration to provide the best we can for our Welsh patients no matter where they live.