Archive for the ‘Health’ Category

Whilst out canvassing over the past week I have had several complaints about what is happening to the Llandudno Minor Injuries Unit. This is not ac Accident and Emergency Unit but it is supposed to offer a 24hrs service. As readers of the Weekly News might have noticed it is not a 24hr unit at the present time. This is the actual notice on the door;

Now there are several areas of concern;

1. Since October the 24hr Minor Injury Service at Llandudno has been a nurse led service. There has been no doctors available after 11pm since then with the European Working Time Directive being blamed by the Health Trust (thank you Tony Blair and Gordon Brown).

2. Staff shortages have been blamed by the Trust for the service being closed at night for a week (as evidenced by the picture above). However, I am very confident is stating that the staff shortages are not at Llandudno but at Bangor. My understanding is that the Trust has decided to close Llandudno at night in order to allow nurses to be transferred to Bangor to help out with a shortage of staff at A&E in Ysbyty Gwynedd. The fact that the Trust is apparently paying for taxi transport back and forth can wait for comment at another time but clearly there is an issue here in terms of the priorities of the Trust. A town and surrounding area with a population of over 30,000 is losing a 24hr minor injury service in order to allow the A&E department at Bangor to be staffed by nurses from Llandudno.

3. As the picture shows the public are advised to make their way to Bangor or call 999. In view of the current stretched Ambulance cover in the area has there been any steps taken by Trust to ensure that ambulance cover for the Llandudno area has been increased to ensure that transporting any patient to Ysbyty Gwynedd does not leave Llandudno without any ambulance cover?

I will be asking these questions of the Betsi Cadwaladr Trust tomorrow morning - if you have any experience or information in relation to these changes then please feel free to contact me in confidence. My mobile number is 07767 493750.

Finally it should be noted that when the picture was taken (by a party member from Llandudno) the member in question was given two conflicting reports of the situation by the the unit manager;

1. Only four people use the Minor Injuries Unit per night between the hours in question (10am - 8pm). Staff were being utilised to deal with a short term shortage of trained nurses at Bangor

2. The Trust will save £500k per year by closing the unit during these hours (2 senior nurses + 1 doctor).

Now why would the figures for savings be so readily available if the closure was only for 1 week as stated in the Weekly News? A £500k saving must have been costed AND discussed I suspect. Secondly is the loss of the Doctor since October due to the working time directive or the beginning of the end of the 24hr Minor Injury Service at Llandudno?

The current developments in relation to the Minor Injury Unit demands a response from the Betsi Cadwaladr Trust.

Guto

Cross border health – put the patient first says Guto Bebb

“Back in 2007 I attended a Public Meeting in Colwyn Bay which was called by David Jones MP to highlight the absurd aims of the Welsh Assembly Health Minister to provide all neurosurgery care for Welsh patients from Cardiff or Swansea. Thankfully those ideas were kicked into touch and the Assembly backed down.

However, whilst the Conservative Party fully accepts that the Assembly is here and has responsibility for health provision it must be down in a way that reflects the geographical reality of Wales. Investment into Llandudno Hospital secured by the tremendous Public Campaign locally is most welcome. Upgrading Bodelwyddan and Ysbyty Gwynedd are changes that are again to be welcomed by anyone who believes in the National health Service. However, the key word is ‘National’.

I have been to Alderhey twice with my children, once due to the premature birth of my twin boys and then due to a particular issue which required specialist care. As I crossed the border into England there was no border point, no guards – it’s a border on paper only. And yet increasingly there are examples of decisions made by the Welsh Assembly which are more obsessed with spending the ‘Welsh pound’ in Wales than giving patients proper care. This results in longer waiting time for Welsh patients seeking treatment in English hospitals which are not being paid for treating Welsh patients at the same rate as English patients. Only recently this cross border issue was highlighted by the Muscular Dystrophy Campaign in relation to the shortage of adequate services in North Wales and yet due to a lack of coherent relationships between the Assembly and cross border Health Authorities receive a far from comprehensive service.

If elected, a Conservative Government will create cross-border procedures in order to ensure that a border which exists in the mind of Assembly bureaucrats does not become a barrier for treatment for Welsh patients.

An independent report published today by the Nuffield Trust identifies the fact that in Wales we spend more on health than in England but our results are poorer.  In effect the productivity of the NHS in Wales is significantly worse than the NHS in England.

A summary of the report can be found here.

Some findings from the report which raise serious concerns include;

1. Average wait for treatment times in Wales is 26 weeks compared to 18 in England.

2. Waiting more than three months for an out-patient appointment in England is almost unheard of and yet in Wales 44% of patients have to wait more than three months for such an appointment.

3. Nearly all English patients were seen within six months for inpatient treatment but in Wales 79% had to wait for longer than this

4. Wales has more GPs than England but we also have more office staff pro rata than in England.

Whilst the report openly admits to being based on statistics collected in 1996/97, 2002/03 and 2006/07 the response of the administration in Cardiff Bay has been to try and rubbish the report and claiming that it is out of date.  With the report acknowledging the fact that the latest stats used are almost three years old it's surprising to see the Plaid / Labour administration attacking the report on this basis.  Surely there is something that they could learn from the detailed work that has been undertaken?

The BBC Wales Health Correspondent states "This report is one of the better attempts at trying to compare and contrast the performance"(of the NHS in England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland) and as such it would be useful to ask the really important question - why does the English NHS system perform better than the system in Wales despite spending significantly less pro rata than we do in Wales?

When the Assembly came into being in 1999 two key policy areas which were devolved were Health and Education.  Education spending in Wales has fallen consistently since the Assembly was established in order to allow spending on the NHS in Wales to increase significantly year on year.  We now spend almost £600 per pupil less in Wales on education than the position in England and the Welsh education performance has declined compared to England.  It would appear, from this report,that the decision to prioritise Health over Education (admitted by the new First Minister Carwyn Jones) has simply not delivered the results that we were promised but undoubtedly has contributed to the lack of investment in the Welsh education system.

Labour and now Labour and Plaid have failed to manage the resources of the Assembly for the benefit of the people of Wales.  It's imperative in my view that the Assembly Government, regardless of their political persuasion, considers with care whether they are delivering for Wales and if not (as the facts indicate) will they be willing to consider some of the innovative proposals being promised by the Conservative Party for England if there is a change of Government at the next election?

In Wales and Aberconwy we want a Health and Education system that works.  The Assembly under Rhodri Morgan wanted to be different in order to ensure that there was, in his words "clear red water between Cardiff Bay and Westminster".  They wanted to be different not in order to serve the people of Wales but in order to justify their existence.  This has to change.

Guto

· Mae diweithdra Cymru bellach yn uwch na’r rhelyw o ranbarthau’r DU.

· Mae gwariant ar addysg yng Nghymru yn £500 y pen yn llai nac yn Lloegr.

· Mae canlyniadau arholiadau yng Nghymru yn wannach na’r cyfartaledd yn Lloegr.

· Mae’r Cynulliad yn gofyn i bob ysgol sydd a 90 neu lai o ddisgyblion gyfiawnhau eu bodolaeth.

· Mae’r Gweinidog dros Iechyd yn y Cynulliad wedi cyfaddef nad yw’n ymwybodol o lle yr aeth £1bn o’r gyllideb Iechyd.

· Mae cynlluniau allweddol ar gyfer gwella ffyrdd yng Nghymru wedi eu gohirio.

Er gwaethaf yr uchod, ac fe allwn fod wedi parhau i ychwanegu at y rhestr, fe dreuliodd y Cynulliad ddoe yn dadlau am ‘semantics’ dyddiad pleidlais ar bwerau pellach i’r sefydliad.  Bu i Blaid Cymru fygwth gadael y llywodraeth nid oherwydd bod hanner y cynnydd mewn diweithdra Prydeinig wedi digwydd yng Nghymru'r mis diwethaf ond oherwydd bod Llafur Cymru yn hanner awgrymu na ddylid blaenoriaethu pleidlais ar bwerau pellach. 

Nid bywydau pobl Cymru sy’n poeni Plaid Cymru a Llafur yn y Cynulliad ond yn hytrach yr angen i gadw eu pleidiau eu hunain yn hapus yn achos y cwestiwn cyfansoddiadol.  Ni chafwyd gair gan neb am fywydau go iawn y boblogaeth syn dioddef o ddiffygion y llywodraeth ym Mae Caerdydd.  Yn gynyddol y mae Bae Caerdydd yn ymdebygu i ffrae deuluol gyda dim ystyriaeth o gyfrifoldeb tuag at neb y tu allan i’r dethol rhai yn yr elit gwleidyddol Cymreig.   

· Welsh unemployment is now higher than most regions in the UK.

· Education spending in Wales is £500 per head lower than in England.

· Welsh Educational achievements now lag behind the English average.

· The Welsh Assembly expects any school with less than 90 pupils to justify its existence.

· The Welsh Health Minister has acknowledged that around £1bn of spending cannot be accounted within the Health budget.

· Crucial plans to improve key Welsh roads have been cancelled.

Despite the above, and I could have extended my list significantly, the Assembly spent yesterday debating the semantic issue of the date for a referendum on further powers for the institution.  Plaid Cymru threatened to leave the coalition government not because half the increase in unemployment within the UK occurred in Wales last month but because Welsh Labour implied that the date of a referendum on further powers was not a priority. 

It would appear that Plaid and Labour politicians in Cardiff Bay are not concerned with the lives of people who live in Wales but rather the internal squabbles within their respective parties with respect to the constitutional question.  There were no discussions yesterday about the concerns of real people leading real lives in Wales who suffer due to the widespread and continued failures of the Welsh Assembly.  Increasingly the debating chamber in Cardiff Bay resembles a family argument with no consideration of the duty that they have towards those who live beyond the Welsh political elite.  

Guto