Drakeford “brags” about Welsh NHS longest two-year waiting list in Britain

The First Minister drew attention to how the longest waits for NHS treatment in Wales have fallen over the last four months – neglecting to mention this was from 70,000 to 60,000 and that two-year waits have been eliminated in England and Scotland.

The brag came during questioning from the Leader of the Opposition who asked whether the Labour Government could keep their commitment to end waits for NHS treatment of over a year. Drakeford did not answer the question.

Commenting after FMQs, Welsh Conservative leader Andrew RT Davies MS said:

“With 1-in-5 people in Wales on an NHS waiting list, and 1-in-4 of those spending over a year needing treatment, it beggars belief that Mark Drakeford would brag about two-year waits falling when there are 60,000 such people are still experiencing them, even when they’ve been eliminated in England and Scotland.

“It is simply unacceptable for people like my elderly constituent to suffer like they did, feeling that a painless death is the best she can hope for after spending a day in A&E and being told that an ambulance is luxury which she would simply have to wait hours for.

“Labour have the levers of government, they have the power to fix the Welsh NHS, and they’ve had it for 25 years. Sadly, it is patients and staff who suffer the consequences of Labour’s historic mismanagement of the Welsh NHS.”  

Davies also highlighted the case of an 86 year-old grandmother in his region who went to Cardiff’s University of Wales Hospital with a suspected stroke.

She had to make the trip by taxi having been told that an ambulance could take several hours maybe even a day. She then had to wait 20 hours in A&E before being seen by a doctor.

Since, the 86 year-old has said she will never go back to a hospital and all she wishes for now is a “painless death”.