Health ‘have no chance’ in UK deal move
Tuesday 15th December 2009, 2:58PM GMT.
Senator Ben Shenton
MINISTERS have no chance of getting anywhere with the reciprocal health agreement with the UK government while Labour remain in charge, according to Senator Ben Shenton.
He says that the Island might have had a better chance of getting it back if the States had not been using it to ‘squeeze money out of the UK government for years’.
The former Health Minister says that he and former Chief Minister Frank Walker could not even get UK ministers or officials to meet them to discuss the agreement, which was withdrawn by the UK in April.
But Senator Shenton, who was in charge at Health when the UK announced that they were going to end the deal in 2008, said that the new Health Minister, Anne Pryke, might have more luck if the Conservatives win next year’s election.
Either way, he says that the Health Department are partly responsible for the problems over the deal, because the UK government got angry that they were paying over the odds for the reciprocal health agreement and that Jersey officials kept quiet about it.
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Sen Ben Shenton is right. We need a right wing party into Government like the Torys to get things back to normal as quickly as possible. Lefty Labour have been a disaster.
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Horse and bolted springs to mind…
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So, Ben. As you say, the States were using it to ‘squeeze money out of the UK government for years’. However, as health minister, were you aware of this fraud ?
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Did our absent but apparently untouchable ex-health minister know about this on his watch? Shouldn’t he?
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Whatever possessed Senator Shenton to make such a preposterous statement?
Did he not realise that his unfortunate remarks would be picked up immediately by the Lieutenant-Governor’s staff and transmitted immediately to London. Surely he knew that this newspaper has an electronic edition, which can be read anywhere on the face of the planet?
Perhaps the time has come for Dick Shenton’s son to learn to engage his brain before opening his mouth in such a damaging fashion.
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it would be inttesting to see what sort of prices the ealth dpartment are charging the isurance companies for treatrment in the hospital compared to what the uk hospitals are charging i bet there’s a big differance
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Udupi
Well said, so easy to make such comments, different story though if Ben was still at the top at health. One would hope you have no chance of ever getting that position back!
May be a fresh face namely Anne Pryke with a better attitude to life will get the reciprocal health agreement back!
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Not surprised..we were robbing the UK 3 point something million pounds a year when it should of been 300 thousand. Lucky they have not asked for a refund in over payments!!………..yet!
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Agreed no 8 and somewhat amazingly states members and locals are annoyed that the UK has pulled the plug on this fiddle.
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my MRI scan 10 years ago was £600 in Jersey 5 years BUPA bills and no cure. At a Top London Hospital MRI £400,1 day London specilist, 2 months later, operation London Hospital 4 days, 10 years pain free, London bill £20,000, Jersey bill no operation no cure, lots of Bulls—, told had frozen shoulder, £12,600, True problem, Brocken Neck,
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Having spent the last three weeks visiting a friend who was flown over to UK as an emergency, and the antics of the NHS, belive me folks you ‘aint missing much.
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If he’d been a good and honest Health Minister he would have sorted this one out.The reason he went was because he couldn’t cut the mustard.
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tbj
What on earth are you trying to say? This is complete gobbledegook.
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I doubt that David Cameron and the tories will have any more power in their elbow than Gordon Brown his labourers.
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First of all we knowingly defraud the UK Government for years, then as an act of spite for taking our gravy train away, we give them Stuart Syvret. We are an island of 90k people and we don’t have a UK vote, so why on earth would any Government consider reinstating this archaic policy
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The whole problem with dealing with any UK govement at the moment with anything involving money. Depends where they have their bank accounts.
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Also the fact that the Jersey authorities appear to have acted with an utter lack of good faith in terms of riping off the UK treasury over many years, might actually influence the UK negotiating position!
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#14 No, but if the Tories get in power (God forbid) the ripping off will go the other way. The Tories should suit Jersey down to the ground, they only care about London after all (another finance centre), but given that the people with the real money have private healthcare?
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“… but if the Tories get in power (God forbid)”
Leah, when Mrs T. was in charge almost the entire population of Jersey worshipped her.
At least one local salon did a roaring trade replicating her hairdo on admirers of a certain age and class.
I used to love coming to the Island to be told what a wonderful job Mrs T. was doing and how she had “turned Britain around and got it on its feet again”.
I seem to remember it was a bit different if you actually lived on the mainland and weren’t one of the people she was looking after.
One thing I remember is that she as good as did away with NHS dentistry. To their shame Labour never put right her wrongs,including the milk snatching!
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#19 yeah, so did London!
Don’t know where you lived but if you lived in Scotland you were a guinea pig for every mad idea that crossed the woman’s head. And some of the repercussions are still going through court in the noughties!
I respect her greatly as a woman but as a Prime Minister, not a chance. The biscuit was looking into have British waters rezoned (all to become English) in case Scotland went for independence!
She may have wanted to remember Britain was not just England. Boy did the Tories get a wake-up call when Scotland managed to get Labour into power. Let’s hope no future Tory government forgets about that.
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The only redeeming fact about Margaret Thatcher as Leah suggests is that she was a woman Prime Minister – compare and contrast with the US having an African American President, we proved to the world that we weren’t sexist, so far so good.
What we didn’t do is elect someone who believed in democracy, sound economic principles or any remotely socialist ideal. The woman in my opinion was a fascist and it’s hardly surprising that she appealed to Jersey right wingers, I’m glad we got shot of her, if only we can do the same for the hardline Tories in the island we might be getting somewhere!
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Yes Leah and your fellow Scots have truly trashed the UK since 1997. We thank you so much for that!
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Claire
As a fellow Scot I would like to know what you are gibbering about when saying we have truly trashed the UK since 1997. What has trashed the UK is letting in all the immigrants, housing them, giving them free education, health care, benefits for them and their families back home
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#22
That was an uncalled for slur on the scots.
I would have thought it was the other way round!
The scots are the most genuine friendly and generous people i have met.
Whenever I have gone to scotland to see my husbands relatives i have met nothing but kindness from strangers who put themselves out to help and welcome you!
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I imagine that Claire is having a dig at Blair and Brown being of Scottish descent. Hardly original.
Who actually trashed Britain since 1977 is debateable. I would suggest that it could have been those lifelong Tory supporters who Blair cosied up to at the start of his reign.
Perhaps,under the pretence of going along with him, they took the opportunity to fill their pockets, turn it into property, yachts and euros and at the same time totally shaft the party which had temporarily espoused their cause.
The sort of thing that vengeful people sometimes do to get even when occupied by a foreign power, for instance.
That should teach Labour not to try and buy votes.
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#22 Waow Claire, how vindictive and xenophobic do you want to be?
Get your facts straight at least. You may simply be too young to realise that the economic problems we are facing up to today were put in place BEFORE Labour came to power. Never mind that the Tory era of wealth (and you can ask Tory historians about this) was based on the fact that the first oil came ashore at the right time for them, Labour put it in motion though.
Personally, I’VE done nothing to trash anywhere
#24 Have to agree (I’d include Ireland too though), having been back home recently it reminds me what a friendly place Scotland is. Shop staff will chat to you, strangers waiting with you in queues will chat to you… it all makes for a more pleasant life. Everywhere has crime but few places nowadays have general friendliness.
I don’t care for any political party, I do care for your ordinary person on the street that was shafted by the Tories.
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Bring back the IRON LADY or at least a replica.
She’d put all you pinko lefty bleeding heart wimps to shame and make the UK proud to be UK and something Jersey may want to be connected with.
I lived in England through the Winter of discontent, The 3 day week, The coal miners strikes etc. The unions are nearly in their place ( there is a place for unions, but not running the country ) and need to be kept there.
Militant unionised left wing Scotland only wanted independence when it “thought” it could make more from Scotlandising North sea oil than it was getting from English subsidised labour exchanges.
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Spot on 22. Where to start with this Labour administration:
Gordon Brown in charge of the Treasury since the beginning. Largest peace time deficit in UK history, wrecks the private pension system in his first budget in 1997, introduces ill advised split of banking regulation with all the disastrous effects we are now seeing.
A cabinet disproportionately packed with Scots who, it has now come out in the press, deliberately opened the immigration gates to destroy Britishness as a way of spiting the Tories and making the country into a fractionalised multicultural society (read the comments from that Labour party insider published recently if you don’t appreciate that little bombshell). So Looby you are correct but it was a deliberate policy of a Scottish dominated cabinet with spiteful social engineering on their mind.
Sir Fred Godwin , probably the largest corporate implosion in world economic history.
The head of Bank of Scotland’s commercial lending business, another Scot, who wrecked that institution and nearly took down a sound bank in Lloyds as a result.
Lord Derry Irvine’s many judgements as Lord Chancellor spring to mind. His rulings contributed a great deal to the situation you mention Looby. Can’t even deport criminals from outside the UK now! Tony B’s pupil master, a wonderful piece of cronyism that was.
I don’t think Claire was having a go at Scots in general, just this monumentaly inept Labour administration.
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I’m happy to offer my support to #22 Claire. I think Portuguese and Polish are far more friendly and hardworking than the Scots. Of course, I’m speaking as a 100% Englishman. Scottish people have massive chips on their shoulders. They want independence from England when it suits them, and then come crawling back when they need help.
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