A key election issue here in Aberconwy is our health service.  With concerns once more about some key services at Llandudno Hospital (such as the future of the 24hr Minor Injury Unit) it is a huge disappointment to see the latest figures from the Welsh Assembly relating to waiting times and the massive failure of the Labour / Plaid Cymru administration to hit their targets.  This is despite the serious underfunding of the education budget in Wales which was decided upon by the Welsh Assembly (initially by Labour but a policy adopted by the new Labour / Plaid administration) in order to allow for a much increased share of the Welsh budget to be allocated to health.

What these two parties fail to understand is that quite often it is not the amount of money that you spend that is important but rather what you do with it.  A lack of efficiency gains within our hospitals, constant re-organisation of the bureaucracy of the Welsh health service and expensive gimmicks such as free prescriptions to the middle classes have all contributed to the money being spent with little or no evidence of significantly better results than those in England.

The latest figures show;

• 13,532 patients waiting more than 14 weeks for inpatient or day case treatment despite an Assembly Government pledge that no-one would need to wait such a long time by March 2009.
• The number of patients waiting more than 14 weeks increased by 4,598% between March 2009 and January 2010!!!
• In January 2010 some 37,288 patients were waiting more than 10 weeks for their first outpatient appointment despite an Assembly Government pledge that no-one would wait longer than 10 weeks by March 2009.
• The number of patients waiting more than 10 weeks for their first outpatient appointment rose by 24,758% between March 2009 and January 2010.

 Dr Andrew Dearden, Chairman of the British Medical Association’s Welsh Council stated that;

“waiting times in Wales are nowhere near English levels” and he further stated that;

“it would be wrong to say that Welsh patients now experience the same waiting times for care as those seen in England”

Labour and their Plaid Cymru partners have failed us here in Wales and continue to do so.  In relation to Health, Education and the Economy the incompetence of this Assembly Government is equal to and even surpasses the failures of Labour at Westminster.  Neither Labour nor their Plaid Cymru partners deserve a further opportunity to wreck the economy and public services of Wales.  We must get rid of them and we can start by removing Gordon brown from 10 Downing Street as soon as the opportunity arises.  We can then turn our attention to the partnership of mediocrity currently masquerading as a Government down in Cardiff Bay.

 Guto