Patients treated equally - boss

Patients from Powys get equal treatment to English patients at Shropshire's hospitals despite a £2 million funding shortfall from Wales, watchdog MPs have been told.

Tom Taylor, chief executive of Shrewsbury & Telford Hospitals Trust, said his trust served a population of 440,000 in England and 60,000 in Wales.

But he insisted that, despite two different funding systems and waiting time targets in England and Wales, all patients were treated equally and according to clinical need.

Giving evidence on cross-border services to the Welsh Affairs Committee at the Commons, he said the complexity of the different targets and funding systems created an administrative burden for the trust.

Mr Taylor said if all funding was based on the English payment-by-results system, the trust would receive an extra £2 million a year, and he accepted, in effect, he was not getting a "fair deal" from the Welsh Assembly.

But he went on to caution that if funding from Powys Local Health Board and the Welsh Assembly was withdrawn, the trust's income would be £16 million lower, and that would result in job losses and cuts in services.

The hospital's chief said he understood when Shropshire MPs complained that their constituents were effectively subsidising Wales to the tune of £2 million a year, but he had a "constituency" of 500,000.