ENGLISH patients under the care of GPs registered in Wales are still having to "go through hoops" to get the treatment they are entitled in England, a group of MPs was told.

Forest-based health campaigner Pam Plummer and Tory MP Jesse Norman, whose Hereford and South Herefordshire constituency includes Ross, gave evidence at the House of Commons to an Welsh Affairs select committee inquiry into cross-border health arrangements.

Mr Norman said many people on the English side of the border "had no choice" but to register with a Wales-based GP but were then "not getting their rights as English residents under the English NHS."

They say there was no problem with the care by GPs but there were barriers to being treated in hospitals in England.

Mrs Plummer, of campaign group Action4OurCare, said seven practices along the Gloucestershire border were affected and three surgeries were in England.

She said: "When I moved to Gloucestershire from Monmouthshire in 2002 I registered with my GP.

"I lived in England the surgery was in England why would I bang on the door and ask if they were Welsh? You don't."

She added: "What has happened to a lot of people in Gloucestershire is awful. I've got goodness knows how many case studies of really poor care and appalling decisions.

"There are all sorts of hoops that people have to leap through.

"You've got an English resident registered with a Welsh GP being seen by a Welsh consultant having to jump to an English GP – through a GP fix – and is now seeing the same Welsh consultant so he can have access to rare cancer drugs.

"One person wanted to go to Frenchay (in Bristol) for his son who had hurt his hand but he was sent to Swansea."

Problems started when the Aneurin Bevan Health Board, which is responsible for care of border GP practices, required 'prior approval' before patients could be sent to English hospitals.

The board's finance director, Alan Brace, told the committee: "The referral policy was to allow us to properly plan for activity outside our area.

"The error we made was for our English patients on the border registered with Welsh GPs where we asked them to seek prior approval.

"We were approving all those because they represented normal and historic flows so we revised the policy and put those arrangements back in place."

Mr Norman said he had cases where patients had been denied treatment since the change in policy.

Members of the committee were concerned that the Welsh NHS was paying for English patients to have treatment in England.

Mrs Plummer said: "It's not about the money – how NHS Wales and NHS England organise the money is up to the managers.

"The issue is about the legal situation based on residency and that is the bottom line. We are entitled to go to England and we have always been entitled to go to England since the Health and Social Care Act 2012."

Mr Norman said: "The current arrangements are not permanent – they are tenuous, they are unjust and money should not drive the solution.

"The solution is what's right for us, what's right for people in Wales and then organise the money."