Sam Rowlands criticises Welsh Government over NHS waits

Sam Rowlands, Member of the Welsh Parliament for North Wales has hit out at the Welsh Government for its "mismanagement" of the NHS in Wales.

Mr Rowlands, Shadow Health Minister was speaking in the Senedd during the Welsh Conservative debate on the Labour Welsh Government’s NHS performance.

He said: “We cannot ignore the fact that the Welsh NHS is not in a good place after a quarter of a century of Labour mismanagement, and it is waiting lists that are the evidence of this mismanagement.

“Patients in my constituency and Members’ constituencies are languishing on those lengthy waiting lists and they can’t always access GPs in the way that works best for them, or, they can’t get much-needed NHS dental provision.

Sam Rowlands (Image: Welsh Parliament for North Wales)

“People are genuinely suffering and just imagine being on a waiting list for two years, perhaps in severe pain and in desperate need of surgery: it’s a traumatic experience and it’s unacceptable. For that to be more than 21,000 people in a country the size of Wales is frankly shameful.

“There are some solutions to this Labour-made crisis, First and foremost, fundamental to all this, is that the Welsh Government must ensure that the full Barnett consequentials, the money that comes from the UK Government, that money, is made available for the health service in Wales.

“Let’s not forget, Welsh Government, receive £1.20 for every £1 spent on public services in England. Yet the same Welsh Government chooses to not spend that full amount on our stretched NHS.”

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A Welsh Government spokesperson said: “Reducing waiting times is a priority and we are investing £170m a year to reduce the backlog that built up during the pandemic. Two-year waits are 70% lower than they were when we launched our recovery plan in April 2022.

“Demand for healthcare has increased markedly and every month the NHS respond to 2m patients – a phenomenal amount for a population of just over 3m people.

“This year, in the most difficult of financial circumstances, we increased funding for frontline NHS services by more than 4% compared to less than 1% in England.

“While we continue to make progress to reduce long waits, health boards must go further and faster to improve performance.

“Performance measures for treatment waiting times across the UK nations are not directly comparable – we count more pathways in our waiting lists than England does. Wales also has an older, sicker, and poorer population than England.”