Why wasn't this headline news today -instead of endless reports about obese
kids and dismal sporting performances...

A case of more bad news 'buried' amongst the news of the sporty failures
this weekend ?

Read down the article - they have it made up there - Scots in power looking
after no1 ?

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main...scot122.xmlJim



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In article ,
lid says...
On Mon, 22 Oct 2007 19:34:49 GMT, "Jimbo" wrote:

Why wasn't this headline news today -instead of endless reports about obese
kids and dismal sporting performances...

A case of more bad news 'buried' amongst the news of the sporty failures
this weekend ?

Read down the article - they have it made up there - Scots in power looking
after no1 ?

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main...scot122.xmlJim

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/error_pag...questid=430587

neither link works
--
Charlie Pridham, Gardening in Cornwall
www.roselandhouse.co.uk
Holders of national collections of Clematis viticella cultivars and
Lapageria rosea

"Charlie Pridham" wrote in message
T...
In article ,
lid says...
On Mon, 22 Oct 2007 19:34:49 GMT, "Jimbo" wrote:

Why wasn't this headline news today -instead of endless reports about
obese
kids and dismal sporting performances...

A case of more bad news 'buried' amongst the news of the sporty failures
this weekend ?

Read down the article - they have it made up there - Scots in power
looking
after no1 ?

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main...scot122.xmlJim

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/error_pag...questid=430587

neither link works

That's the Telegraph for you...

John

Apologies one and all - The Telegraph moved it and have now archived it !
Lucky I saved it.........


Scotland plans to axe prescription charges

By Kate Devlin, Scottish Political Correspondent
Last Updated: 12:01am BST 22/10/2007


The public services ''apartheid" between England and Scotland has
widened again as Scottish ministers pledged to abolish all prescription
charges north of the border.

a.. Your view: Should English taxpayers subsidise Scottish health
care?


Scottish health minister Nicola Sturgeon said she wanted to
erase 'inequality' in the NHS


While millions of patients in England will still be expected to pay
for vital medication, prescriptions in Scotland will be available free of
charge within four years.

The move was cited as the starkest example yet of the "unfairness" of
the current funding arrangement, with English taxpayers forced to pay
towards improvements to health care and education available only in
Scotland.

Scottish residents already have access to free eye care and dental
check ups, free personal care for the elderly, extra central heating grants
and a number of drugs deemed "too costly" for the National Health Service in
England and Wales.

As a result of plans announced earlier this summer, Scottish students
will receive a free university education and pupils in the early years of
primary school could soon be taught in class sizes as small as 18.

Under the Barnett formula - the complex calculation which allocates
Treasury funding to Britain's regions - Scotland receives £1,500 more of
Government funding per head of population than England each year.

Critics claim the system has become "an extreme form of postcode
lottery" in which English taxpayers are subsidising their northern
neighbours, with the ruling Scottish National Party taking advantage to
abolish a series of fees.

Matthew Elliott, from the Taxpayers' Alliance, said: "This is another
example of the unfairness caused by the Barnett formula.

"Taxpayers across England are getting sick of the fact that they are
paying for free university education, free care for the elderly and now free
prescriptions for Scots.

"Either Scotland should be made to raise the money it spends or these
measures should be rolled out nationwide."

A spokesman for the Liberal Democrats said: "The Barnett formula is
currently not working as it should. The Liberal Democrats have long argued
that this calculation needs to be reconsidered. Even Joel Barnett, its
inventor, says it needs to be looked at again."

Ben Wallace, the Conservative shadow minister of state for Scotland,
said: "This is another example of how devolution is all at one end at the
moment. Devolution is supposed to be about fairness and Labour have only
done half the job."

More than 720 million prescriptions are written in Britain every year,
bringing in almost £500 million to the NHS.

Scottish ministers believe it will cost around £70 million to abolish
the charges for Scottish patients - £50 million for loss of income and £20
million to allow for increased take up.

First levied in 1952, prescription charges have long proved
controversial.

Their introduction prompted the resignation of a number of Labour
ministers including the "architect" of the NHS, Aneurin Bevan.

They were abolished by Harold Wilson's government in 1966 but
reintroduced two years later after a massive rise in the health service's
drugs bill.

Patients are charged £6.85 per prescription.

However, some are exempt from the payments, including those under 16,
over 60, students aged 16-18, war pensioners and the unemployed.

Also exempt from the fee are patients with certain medical conditions,
including diabetes and epilepsy.

Prescription charges were abolished by the Welsh Assembly earlier this
year, meaning the Scottish announcement will soon leave only England and
Northern Irish patients paying for their medicines.

Nicola Sturgeon, the Scottish health minister, said she wanted to
erase "inequality" in the NHS and had been moved to act after hearing of
Parkinson's sufferers who had gone without prescribed medicines because they
cannot afford the prescription charges.

"That is not acceptable and it is not a situation that the new
government will tolerate," she said.

Earlier this year, she announced that the Scottish NHS would abolish
prescription charges for those with chronic illnesses such as asthma.

The new move will remove all charges within the lifetime of the
current Scottish Parliament, due to run until 2011.

Vanessa Bourne, from the Patients Association, said the proposals
would create an "extreme form of postcode lottery".

''If it is a national health service then patients should not be
penalised for where they live."

She added: ''This is another example of a postcode lottery but in a
very extreme form as patients in England also feel that they are helping to
pay for the health service in Scotland and not reaping any of the benefits."

Andrea Ttofa, of the Parkinson's Disease Society, said the
announcement by ministers in Scotland should prompt politicians in
Westminster to abolish prescription charges in England and Northern Ireland
as well.

She said: "People with Parkinson's want equitable care across the
country. They shouldn't be penalised for where they live."

"John E" wrote in message
...
"Charlie Pridham" wrote in message
T...
In article ,
lid says...
On Mon, 22 Oct 2007 19:34:49 GMT, "Jimbo" wrote:

Why wasn't this headline news today -instead of endless reports about
obese
kids and dismal sporting performances...

A case of more bad news 'buried' amongst the news of the sporty
failures
this weekend ?

Read down the article - they have it made up there - Scots in power
looking
after no1 ?

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main...scot122.xmlJim

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/error_pag...questid=430587

neither link works

That's the Telegraph for you...

John


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"Anne Jackson" wrote in message
...
The message from "Jimbo" contains these words:

Scotland plans to axe prescription charges

Rather than spending time complaining that we, in Scotland, will
have free prescriptions (I already _have_ them, BTW!) perhaps
your time would be better spent lobbying the Westminster parliament,
hopefully to achieve the same treatment for the English?

Hear, hear, or should that be here, here!