Cllr. Gavin Ayling

I was distressed multiple times today when watching my recording of the Daily Politics.

I was first distressed with how much I agreed (again) with Frank Field. Could it be that Frank is more Conservative and reasonable that Mr Cameron?!

Then I was distressed by the other guest (Charlie Whelan) who turned suddenly nasty when asked to comment on Mr Field’s position. Political correctness and a naive determination that Labour voters will not mind their lower-paid jobs being made lower paid by, admittedly hard-working, immigrants from the new EU member states.

Freedom of movement is an important aspect of the European Union and I firmly believe that some of the repurcussions on the newer member states’ economies should have been considered before membership was granted. How can the urban, never mind rural, economies in Romania, Poland and Bulgaria survive with such numbers leaving?

But we cannot go over what might have been and hope to come out of it other than frustrated.

What have we learnt?

Probably, most importantly, that poor countries need to be helped by western nations before we offer them the mixed blessing that is EU membership. In fact, as EU membership is so attractive for the likes of Romania because of the assistance they are given for infrastructure improvements, why not make those donations of assistance so that the quality of life differential is not so massive by the time the barriers to movement are taken away?

The humane thing to do with the likes of Turkey and Croatia and Macedonia is to give them the assistance and representation etc. that any other EU country has without providing them with the crippling effect that is freedom of movement (it could be termed “freedom to lose your most productive citizens”).

I went, unfortunately, to Worthing Hospital’s Accident and Emergency last night. Don’t worry, everyone’s fine.

We went there for what eventually turned out to be a five minute consultation. We waited for three hours (a little over, but three hours doesn’t need exaggerating). Everyone in there was reasonably good natured but there was a definite sense that things weren’t being run well.

For all the will in the world, a well-funded, working health system would not leave people waiting for three hours in the evening to see a doctor to be told that the injury is superficial and will pass. No.

What should happen is that people walk in, are seen, and then leave. It cannot be unusual to have long waiting times in A&E so it cannot be a surprise to those allocating resources and should indicate that the funding being made available is insufficient.

Perhaps some of the money spent on “Don’t abuse our staff” posters could be saved by employing an extra medical professional or two and so reduce the understandable anger that people waiting there feel.

But the topping on the cake, the real kick in the proverbials is that Worthing’s A&E will likely be closed soon. An A&E that is so heavily used that a three hour waiting time can be expected on a Monday is being removed as part of the government’s ‘reform’ agenda (if you ask them) or is being removed because of funding issues (if you ask the Trust).

There is clearly no sense in this, and yet there seems like there’s nothing we can do. This hospital, like so many others under threat, is in a Conservative constituency. Any boiled-over anger will be taken out on the Labour party’s vote in an area where their challenger was beaten by the LibDem who was beaten by the Conservative MP by 20,000-odd votes!

So if you’re angry, don’t just vote Conservative at the next election. Go further, sign the KWASH petition, join the Facebook group (I’ll add a link later) and go and collect signatures for the petition yourself.