Oh what a mess is the NHS!

A new report on the National Health Service in Britain has damned it as being in "a complete mess".

The report by a House of Commons Health Select Committee warns that prescriptions, dentistry and eye test charges have developed without any "comprehensive, underlying principles", causing them to be "full of anomalies."

MPs believe it is unacceptable that one third of opticians do not sell spectacles within the NHS voucher value and are calling for the reintroduction of eye tests for all young children and increased efforts to target people at risk of eye disease.

They say the system of medical exemptions to the prescription charge is particularly confusing and was compiled in 1968 and has not changed since.

The Committee says considering the vast improvements in medical science since that time, it is unacceptable, and they are urging the Government to carry out a full-scale review to find out the cost and benefits of alternative systems - such as abolishing all of the existing health charges, or abolishing the prescription charge only.

The report has revealed that in the year 2004/05 hospitals charged £78 million for the use of their car parks, £63 million was paid by visitors and £15 million by their own hospital staff.

The MPs say hospital car parking fees should be scrapped for patients attending on a daily basis and reduced for patients and their visitors who attend regularly.

The Committee found great variation in the income generated by hospitals car parks; while the average parking space generated around £200, some provincial general hospitals made up to £2000 per space.

The committee also criticise the cost of incoming calls to hospital bedside telephones as insupportable at a very high rate of up to 49p per minute.