No waiting list here, boast French

A FRENCH hospital is using the NHS winter crisis to urge English patients to cross the Channel for quicker care.

One leaflet from the Centre Hospitalier in Calais urges the British to choose it for elective surgery, adding simply: ‘Why wait?’

Compared with waits of 18 weeks in the UK, patients who travel to France can be treated within four weeks, they say. The hospital is run in partnership with health chiefs in south Kent, and according to the Department of Health only patients living in this area are eligible.

The clinical commissioning group for South Kent Coast first signed the deal with the hospital two years ago – over fears that patients were waiting too long for procedures such as hip operations.