The man who believes he can fix the NHS in Wales

Mabon ap Gwynfor laughs when I ask him if the smile on his face and glint in his eye will still be there if we meet in his office in 18 months time for a followup interview.

- Political editor Ruth Mosalski reports

Currently Plaid Cymru’s health spokesperson in the Senedd, by then, he hopes he’ll be more than a year into the job he is desperate for, to be the man to fix Wales’ health service.

A lifelong Plaid campaigner, he was out on the streets of Carmarthen with his grandfather, and Plaid’s first ever MP, Gwynfor Evans, when he was just four years old.

A party member since his teenage years, when he went to Bangor University, he set up the party's branch there. The now 47-year-old was elected to the Senedd in 2021 to represent Dwyfor Meirionnydd and now, as his first term ends, his eyes are on the big prize.

Married with four children, representing a north Wales constituency, his job already sees his week split in two, but that would be nothing compared to if he gets the health gig, a job few relish.

Health will be a key election issue, so why should voters choose him and his party?.

“We've done the work, we've identified the problems and we've identified most of the solutions” he says, but also warns: “We have to be clear it’s not going to be done in four years. There are deep structural problems in the NHS”

He continues: “Some of it can be done pretty soon, we can put things in place in the first 100 days around governance, around transparency and answerability but the longer -term stuff, it’s going to be two terms.”

Given we meet before the party has published its manifesto, there are not yet policies to quiz him on but there is plenty of ground to cover.

We start with two of the biggest, most topical issues in the Welsh NHS - the state of the country’s biggest hospital, the University Hospital of Wales, Cardiff, and Betsi Cadwaladr University Health Board.

What would he do to fix them?