A view from Sam Rowlands – Welsh Conservative North Wales Member of the Senedd
Wrexham.com has invited the four North Wales Members of the Senedd to write a monthly column with updates on their work. You can find their updates – along with contributions from the Wrexham and Clwyd South MPs and MSs – here.
In this month’s column, Welsh Conservative MS Sam Rowlands writes:
We recently marked the 75 th anniversary of the National Health Service. Established in the years after World War Two, it was the first health service of its kind in the Western world.
A lot has changed since then. For one, we now have a devolved system. From 1999, the NHS in Wales has been controlled by the Welsh Government in Cardiff – not the UK Government in London.
The Welsh Government has been controlled by Labour for every single second since the establishment of that Welsh Government. The NHS in Wrexham and across Wales is Labour’s responsibility.
It’s fair to say the NHS here is not in great health as celebrates its 75th birthday.
Let’s have a look at some of the ailments. Betsi Cadwaladr Health Board, which oversees us in North Wales, it has been described as “dysfunctional” in a recent report by the Auditor General.
A recent Ernst & Young investigation into the Board showed a rotten culture where highly-paid senior staff were misleading investigators and falsifying documents.
We also know the Board has been in special measures for many years (apart from when Labour took it out just before the last Welsh Parliament elections) with little sign of any concrete improvement.
This past winter, the Board had to declare a critical emergency twice because it simply could not cope with the demand.
Looking at dentistry, it is virtually impossible for new patients in North Wales to get an NHS dentist.
I had previously contacted 69 NHS dentists in our region and spoke to 57 of those practices. In all of North Wales, with a population of 700,000 people, not one NHS dental practice was able to take on new patients, with just four offering a place on a waiting list, likely to be over two years.
Other statistics are just as shocking. The Welsh NHS has 2-year waiting lists of around 30,000.
This number is virtually zero in England and Scotland.
The British Medical Association recently warned that Welsh Labour’s health service is at a ‘risk of collapse’. Incredibly, the Labour Cardiff Government are the only Government across Britain to cut NHS spending in modern times – not the Conservative Government in London.
You have to wonder what the founder of the National Health Service, Labour’s Aneurin Bevan, would have made of this sorry state of affairs.
People are suffering unnecessarily, languishing in pain on horrendous waiting lists and not being able to access the basic care
that they need.Despite Labour’s mismanagement, there is no doubt that the people who work hard in the NHS as doctors, nurses and staff deserve huge credit.
I am proud that my brother and sister are both NHS nurses here in North Wales and they are like many others who have played their part in helping people in our communities when they’re most in need.
For me, the NHS has been brilliant at some important moments; from the births of my three children, to my brother-in-law in intensive care with COVID, right through to those providing the care for my grandparents in their final days.
The vast range of challenges faced and support given by the NHS in Wales on any given day is mind-boggling, and those staff deserve our utmost support.
It’s obvious, however, that patients and staff are not always getting what they need. They are being let down by a government in Cardiff – and we need drastic change to fix the problem.
From founding the National Health Service to running it into the ground, that is the legacy of the Labour Party here in Wales. The evidence to me is clear. We all know what the first step to a Welsh NHS revival is, and that is the removal of Labour from office.
Spotted something? Got a story? Email [email protected]
