DIRTY A&E units, bulging waiting lists and patients left languishing in waiting rooms for hours – welcome to the NHS under Labour.
Sir Keir Starmer vowed last week that his party would “give Britain its NHS back” — but Labour’s record in Wales has left the health service there on its knees.
One gran with suspected sepsis was forced to wait THREE DAYS in a wheelchair in A&E, while another patient said she is so traumatised by her experience she will cross the border to England the next time she needs care.
A Sun on Sunday investigation found that the equivalent of close to one in four people in Wales are waiting for treatment, plus nearly 55,000 on waiting lists for two years.
The double whammy of Covid and flu has wreaked havoc in hospitals across the UK.
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And data from the Office for National Statistics, the UK’s largest independent producer of official figures, suggests Wales performs worse when it comes to avoidable mortality, deaths from causes considered avoidable, treatable or preventable given timely and effective care.
In 2019 there were 220.9 avoidable deaths per 100,000 in England, compared to 258.5 in Wales.
Robin Millar, Tory MP for Aberconwy, warned: “Don’t get sick in Wales.
“We know what the NHS is like under Labour and it isn’t pretty.
“Their excuse is that people in Wales are ‘older, sicker and poorer’.”
The NHS in Wales has been run by successive Labour administrations since devolution in 1999, which handed power over the healthcare system to the Senedd, the Welsh parliament.
Government data from StatsWales in October reveals that there were 54,491 referrals waiting more than two years to be treated by a specialist.
‘So incredibly angry’
And a total of 753,293 treatments are waiting to be completed — meaning the equivalent of almost one in four of the Welsh population are currently on a waiting list.
In England, 1,423 referrals were waiting two years for treatment, according to NHS England stats from November.
However, only referrals overseen by a consultant are reported in England. In Wales, some cases that don’t require consultant oversight, such as physiotherapy, are counted.
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The picture is also bleak when it comes to emergency care.
Only 50 per cent of red (life-threatening) calls to the Welsh Ambulance Services NHS Trust were reached within the eight-minute target time — and there were 10,230 people waiting more than 12 hours in A&E to be admitted, transferred or discharged in September.
Some have had to hold on far longer. In December, Granny Morwen Griffiths, 90, from Ceredigion, was forced to wait three days after being taken to A&E at Glangwili Hospital in Carmarthen with suspected sepsis.
Her granddaughter Caryl, 27, said: “It was endless and massively frustrating.”
Morwen was discharged after five days with no definitive diagnosis.
Caryl said: “We’re just so incredibly angry at the Welsh government for not supporting the NHS and all the people like Gran”.
Andrew Carruthers, director of operations at the health board for the hospital, said he was “sorry for the distress”.
Funding for the devolved nations is calculated by the Barnett Formula.
According to healthcare think tank the Nuffield Trust, Wales receives approximately 15 per cent more cash per head overall than England.
When it comes to spending on health, HM Treasury data from 2018-2019 shows the spend per-head in Wales is £2,402, compared to £2,269 in England.
Yet a significant proportion of cash is funnelled into social care in Wales, where spending is 30 per cent higher than in England.
Labour politicians, led by Wales’ First Minister Mark Drakeford, have been quick to point out that the country faces a unique set of challenges.
They say the Welsh population is generally older, in worse health and poorer than in England.
Professor Jon Barry, director for Wales at the Royal College of Surgeons of England, argues the problems are not financial.
He said: “The two key problems are with the workforce and social care.
“Working conditions aren’t acceptable. There’s too much stress, too much box-ticking, not enough support.
“It doesn’t matter how much money you throw at a problem if the staff aren’t there to implement change.”
But even if drastic changes are made, they will come too late for Catherine Cudden, who died after a 20-hour wait in A&E.
The 62-year-old suffered from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and a heart condition.
She was taken to the University Hospital of Wales in Cardiff in November, struggling with fluid in her lungs and swelling.
Her sister Pat Cann, 65, from Barry, said: “Catherine and I kept asking for a bed, or at least a stool to raise her feet and reduce the swelling, but nobody would help.”
The following morning Pat had to dash home to give her disabled daughter, Nadya, 33, medication then received a call from the hospital urging her to “get back quickly”.
‘Blood on their hands’
She said: “I got back to the A&E ward and couldn’t find Catherine.
“I was shouting, asking where she was, and then was told she’d passed away.”
The family has lodged a complaint and Pat believes the A&E department “has blood on their hands”.
A spokesman for the health board said: “We are very sorry to hear about the loss of Catherine and our thoughts and condolences are with the family.”
Catherine’s death came weeks after a damning report by the Healthcare Inspectorate Wales laid bare the chaos inside the same A&E unit.
It found it to be overcrowded, poorly maintained, visibly dirty and not able to guarantee the safety and dignity of patients.
One patient had to sit on the floor and another on bins in a corridor.
Dr Suresh Pillai, vice president of the Royal College of Emergency Medicine (Wales), says Wales is facing the “perfect storm”.
He explained: “Like the rest of the UK, we’re dealing with the continued fallout from the pandemic.
“But two other factors which are pushing the NHS to breaking point are a much older population combined with a lack of social care.”
Cleaner Jean Richardson, 48, from Colwyn Bay, is still traumatised by 26 hours she spent in A&E at Glan Clwyd Hospital, in Rhyl, with her daughter Lauren, 25, in April.
Jean said: “It was like a war zone, completely packed, some people sitting on the floor, very elderly people slumped in wheelchairs, people wailing.
“Lauren had to help one elderly lady get to the toilet as she was injured and couldn’t walk.
“She’d been left alone for hours. It was complete chaos.”
Jo Whitehead, chief executive of Betsi Cadwaladr University, previously apologised for the case and acknowledged Jean’s experience was “difficult and stressful”.
Welsh Health Secretary Eluned Morgan said: “We ask a huge amount of our NHS and its dedicated staff and they continue to deliver.
“Long waits for treatment are falling every month in Wales as the NHS makes good progress to clear the Covid backlog in the face of very real pressures affecting the NHS across the UK.
“We will always support the NHS and social care in Wales but after 12 years of Tory misrule in Westminster, including a decade of austerity, the NHS desperately needs a Labour UK government.”
'Next time I'll cross the border'
CLEANER Jean Richardson, 48, from Colwyn Bay, spent 26 hours at Glan Clwyd Hospital A&E in Rhyl after splitting open her knee.
She said: “It was a huge, deep cut, so I needed urgent care. I called 999 and was told there was an eight-hour wait for an ambulance, so I arranged for a friend to give me a lift to the nearest A&E.”
Jean, above, was accompanied by her daughter Lauren, 25.
She said: “It was like a war zone, packed, some people sitting on the floor, elderly people slumped in wheelchairs, people wailing.”
She added: “There’s no way I’m going back to one. I’d prefer the two-hour drive each way to England.”
Jo Whitehead, chief executive of Betsi Cadwaladr University, previously apologised and acknowledged Jean’s experience was “difficult and stressful”.
Waiting time: three days
GRANNY Morwen Griffiths, 90, from Ceredigion, waited three agonising days for treatment for suspected sepsis at Glangwili Hospital A&E in Carmarthen.
Her granddaughter Caryl, 27, above with her, said: “We kept asking if Gran could have a bed.
“She got moved into a corridor, still in a wheelchair. Then on day four we were finally promised a bed.
“But within ten minutes of being moved to a bed, a patient with more urgent needs came in and she was back in her wheelchair.”
Morwen was eventually discharged after receiving oxygen but with no diagnosis.
Caryl added: “We were asked if we could provide aftercare for her when she got home.
“Gran lives alone, so we created a rota so she had four visits a day to check on her.”