FM WARNS POLITICAL CHANGE COULD PLACE NHS 'IN JEOPARDY'

FIRST Minister Eluned Morgan has warned the future of the NHS could be "in jeopardy" if her party was to lose power in next year’s crucial Senedd election.

- By ELLIE GOSLEY

Speaking about the state of the NHS in Wales at a Senedd scrutiny committee on Friday, she said: “There are 2.75 million appointments every month in a population of three million people. That is an extraordinary amount of work that is being done in our communities, so when people say the NHS isn’t working in Wales I just think, ‘It's working for 2.75 million people.”

Ms Morgan continued: “It’s really important for people to recognise how much work is being done and how that could be in jeopardy if you get a party running the Senedd in the future who are not committed to the NHS and who could actually cause chaos.

“The things people today take for granted may not be there in the future, including free prescriptions.”

Ms Morgan also admitted so-called “corridor care” is too common.

Plaid Cymru MS for mid and west Wales Cefin Campbell MS asked: “Do you accept that corridor care has become normalised?”

The First Minister said: “The Welsh Government has been clear - we don’t want to see corridor care. We want to see things change.

“There is too much corridor care happening but what's interesting is seeing how things have improved in certain departments. The difference in somewhere like Swansea recently is a model that other hospitals could learn from.

“This time last year Swansea was the one we were most concerned about but now the system there has been transformed. What's important is that we learn from each other.”