Letter to Alan Johnson

Dear Mr Johnson,

I am alarmed to read on the BBC that 28,000 Welsh patients per year are hopping over the border to take advantage of English hospitals.

I remember back to 2005 when the Welsh First Minister, Rhodri Morgan, pledged to prevent English "health tourists" from popping over the border to Wales to take advantage of free prescriptions. He said, "We are bringing in, in the autumn, tighter controls."

28,000 visiting Welsh patients can only have the effect of increasing waiting times at English hospitals, and at a time when the English themselves are forgoing free prescriptions in order to invest the savings in better hospitals and cutting waiting times.

As the Health Secretary for England, are you going to bring in tighter controls do to ensure that Welsh people use the Welsh NHS and their own hospitals, which are presumably sub-standard because they have chosen to fritter their money away on free prescriptions for all (English health tourists excepted)?

Best regards,