THERE have been various press reports in recent weeks regarding parking charges by our NHS trusts, and the ever-increasing pressure on outpatients and visitors to hospitals throughout the UK. 
Wiltshire people facing long spells of treatment may face huge parking fees whilst their treatment is carried out by the outpatient departments, not to mention the long queues, for example at Swindon’s Great Western Hospital, you can wait ages to even find a parking space.
As usual these big organisations like the NHS trusts and the NHS in general are letting the British taxpayers down, as we see a huge amount of NHS funding being spent on the so-called health tourists, and the total lack of will to collect payment from overseas visitors who have healthcare whilst in the UK. This seems to me to be a slap in the face to the British taxpayer, and abuse of the system on a grand scale by foreign nationals. 
This makes the parking issues look rather small compared to this awful financial abuse that is being allowed to take place year after year without a firm grip to close down this loophole by the NHS, and to stop health tourism.
The NHS is very quick to hand out parking fines and to increase its revenue by putting up parking charges but is totally useless at protecting taxpayers’ money when it comes to visitors to this country using our NHS. For example, how many non-UK residents just come to this country just to give birth at our expense, or to have costly surgery, and then return to their country never to be seen again?
In this time of limited funds and huge pressure on our services, why is government not dealing with this issue?
DAVID POOLE
Rowden Hill
Chippenham