Tuesday, March 20, 2007

Dear BBC Breakfast TV.......

Another letter of complaint I'm afraid regarding the story in this morning's show about hospitals in England making nearly £100 million from car park charges.

Honestly, when will the people at BBC Breakfast invest in some journalists? The standard of reporting this story was just pathetic -- and as per usual, the two people masquerading as 'presenters' completely failed to understand the dynamic of the story. Hospital Car Park charges only happen in England because English hospitals are the only ones out of the UK who actually charge their patients to park their cars.

And when Sian Williams read out that email about the hospital in Merthyr Tydfil that has FREE car parking, she airily summised that it is because land prices in Merthyr were cheaper than in England. Good grief, to come to such a conclusion really is pathetic, quite apart from it being totally inaccurate.

Wales and Scotland let their hospital visitors and patients have free access to their hospital car parks because they can afford to do so, courtesy of the Barnett formula cash dividend gathered from English tax payers.

So English patients are the only ones who have to pay for hospital car parking, only ones who don't qualify for expensive cancer drugs, only ones who have to sell their homes to pay for residential care.....

Don't you think this should be reported by the BBC? But then again, I'm not surprised, After all, editorial objectivity from the BBC was one of the first casualties of a post Hutton corporation. You are nothing but supine lap dogs for Nu Labour - with the reporting ability of a Janet and John children's book editor. Editorial objectivity? What an utter joke.

1 comment:

Rhys Wynne said...

Wales and Scotland let their hospital visitors and patients have free access to their hospital car parks because they can afford to do so, courtesy of the Barnett formula cash dividend gathered from English tax payers.

They charge for parking in Cardiff, Newport and Glan Clwyd (Bodelwyddan) hospitals in Wales. I think each hospital has their own policy.