Time to declare a health emergency

THE NHS in Wales is in the worst state it has ever been. Today, nearly one in five people in Wales are waiting for treatment. Almost 800,000 patient pathways are open, and over a quarter of a million people have been waiting for more than nine months for care.

- @ James Evans MS is the Welsh Conservative Shadow Cabinet Secretary for Health and Social Care

Thousands are still waiting over two years, something that has been almost eradicated in England. And if that’s not an emergency, I don’t know what is.

Labour will tell us about their £120m fund to cut waiting lists. They will tell us about Wales becoming a Marmot nation. But patients don’t need hashtags or slogans; they need treatment and they need it now.

We have the worst A&E waiting times in the United Kingdom. Every month, over 100,000 people in Wales wait more than 12 hours in A&E. While they wait, ambulances queue outside, unable to offload patients, tying up paramedics who should be on the road saving lives.

The Welsh ambulance service has not hit its target for eight-minute response times for life-threatening calls for four years straight.