HOSPITAL horror stories – such as the Redbrook woman offered an appointment in WREXHAM – should soon be at an end if Welsh health chiefs rubber stamp a suggestion to let doctors refer English patients to English hospitals.

The likely about-face by the Aneurin Bevan Health Board was announced at a packed public meeting in St Briavels on Saturday morning organised by campaign group Action4OurCare.

But it did not prevent stories of some Gloucestershire people having their choice of hospital denied and appointments made for hospitals in Wales.

Mariella Robinson, who lives in Redbrook and runs a gallery in St Briavels and is a patient at the surgery in the village, said she had waited two years for an appointment to see an immunologist.

She added: "As an alternative I was offered the chance to see somebody in Wrexham."

Joan Foley said her son was being treated at Nevill Hall Hospital, Abergavenny and Frenchay in Bristol but the neuro-surgeon in Bristol cannot access his computer records on the other side of the Severn – so she copies them and takes them with her.

Forest MP Mark Harper promised to help where he could and added that while the problems being experienced had been theoretically possible since devolution in 1999, the cases had mounted since a change of policy by the Welsh Government last year.

Since last year patients living in Gloucestershire and Herefordshire registered with Welsh GPs have had to use Welsh hospitals unless their doctor had a special dispensation.

Mr Harper also branded the board "a bit rubbish" for not making any of the 23 directors available for the St Briavels meeting.

A report to the health board meeting today (Wednesday) recommends Welsh practices should have the freedom to send Gloucestershire residents to a number of English hospitals including Bristol.

Concerns were also raised about getting to Welsh hospitals for English OAPs who have bus passes which are only valid as far as Chepstow.

Action4OurCare founder Pam Plummer the 275 people at the meeting that they had "won the battle but not the war."

The group will continue to campaign for a permanent solution that prevents the board changing it back and for better consultation and communication.

She added: "We want recognition of our legal and democratic right of choice.

"Action4OurCare changed assumptions held by many important organisations and has showed what can be achieved when we work together."

The meeting also heard a letter of support from the chairman of the Friends of Lydney Hospital.

When Dr Alasdair Jacks of the Vauxhall practice in Chepstow and Tutshill said if people went to English practices – Severnbanks in Lydney is to extend its catchment to the border – they would lose free prescriptions, it came as news to some.

Florence McGowan of Sedbury said she always paid when she used the pharmacy in Sedbury and some pharmacists in Chepstow would also charge.