sherbert wrote on Mar 16^th, 2012 at 12:09pm:

Here is Mr Burns, Minister of State (health Services), again defending the idea that patients should pay for NHS services.

There are many sound arguments which could be used to explain why NHS Hospitals should not be required to sell off the land they use to provide car parks, or denied the opportunity to raise income from it. There is certainly no good argument for the NHS meeting the costs involved in travelling to and from the point where NHS services are delivered, for those who travel by private car.

I am dismayed that Mr Burns takes the opportunity to again state that he sees no problem in patients paying towards the cost of providing NHS services, when this should be met from taxation. He may just as well have said that hospital car park charges are justified because they enable the government to reduce taxes for high earners.

When discussing use of 0844 numbers recently, Mr Burns referred to them being within the level of charge that GPs "should" make for their NHS services.

Anyone who is any doubt about the intentions of the present government to replace our "National" health service with a "patient focussed" service, should note these remarks and the inevitable consequence in respect of how the new service will be funded. If Mr Burns is content for NHS services to be paid for by patients, he surely cannot believe that others should meet the costs incurred in providing whatever service a patient may choose in a free market.

Ok, I have now unfortunately become the 'world expert' on going to several hospitals

During the last month I have had to attend The East Surrey Hospital in Redhill, Horsham, Crawley, Royal Surrey County Hospital Guildford and St Luke's Hospital at Guildford and I can report that all their telephone numbers whether to it is to the switchboards or the direct lines to the individuals are all geographical numbers As I am with 'Anytime' with BT this has been brilliant.

Then we come to my 'bug bear' car parking. Mainly it is about £1 an hour, which does get quite costly when you have to go a lot. However at St Luke's they have a brilliant scheme, because people have to have treatment there they give you a piece of paper with your patient number on and you put that on your dash board and then you pay £1.50 A DAY to park in their designated car park.  I actually think that is very fair if they are insisting on charging to park.

So, as I am usually the first to have a moan and be negative about car parking and NHS telephone calls on this site, it gives me pleasure to report that some things are getting better.

All I have to do now is get my doctor's practice to change from their 0844 number ....whoops I have got to go there is a pig flying past my window.