Sort health service out or resign
Abergavenny Chronicle - 1st July 2004

Writes Chronicle Reporter
Rob Westall

MONMOUTH AM David Davies has called for the Welsh Assembly Health Minister Jane Hutt to get to grips with the health service in Wales or resign. His call comes after one of his Abergavenny constituents decided to go private after she was told she would have to wait 20 months to see a chest consultant at Nevill Hall Hospital - more than the 18 months target time for treatment on the the NHS.

Nesta Davies, aged 68, of North Street, was diagnosed with asthma more than two years ago. In January 2004 her GP decided to refer her for an appointment at Nevill Hall’s Chest clinic to re-examine her condition.

A few weeks later Mrs Davies received a letter from Gwent Healthcare NHS Trust stating that the current waiting time for her appointment was 20 months.

“I would have had to wait 20 months just for an appointment to have my condition assessed before being put on another waiting list to receive treatment,” said Mrs Davies.

She decided to write to Jane Hutt AM to ask her why she had to wait so long for an appointment date in view of the minister’s ‘numerous statements in the media stating the many millions of pounds injected into the NHS in the last 12 to 18 months, the extra doctors and nurses taken on board and the insistence that waiting times are falling.’

Mrs Davies told the Chronicle she was u not satisfied with the two letters she received from Mrs Hutt’s representatives during months of correspondence and didn’t feel like she was getting anywhere. “My intention was not to jump the queue but to get an answer to my question and I am still waiting,” said Mrs Davies.

Unprepared to wait 20 months for an appointment and even longer for treatment, Mrs Davies decided to go private and within two weeks had an appointment to see the same consultant she would have seen on the NHS in the same hospital.

“Personally health wise I’m just relieved that I’m having treatment, I do not blame the consultants, I blame the system,” said Mrs Davies.

David Davies AM who was contacted by Mrs Davies in January said, “I wrote several times to the minister and health officers and raised the matter directly in the Welsh Assembly and like Mrs Davies I got back a lot of jargon.

“It concerns me greatly that people are waiting up to 20 months for an appointment and I know of other cases in Abergavenny where people are waiting even longer just for appointments. “Jane Hutt AM should have got to grips with the problem years ago and if she continues to fail patients like Mrs Davies then she should resign.”

He added, “The minister has promised to cut waiting lists and she has manifestly failed to do this, increasing the spending on needless bureaucracy, blaming everyone else for her failings and not grasping the scale of the problem.” Mr Davies urged her to take note of what her Westminster counterpart, John Reed MP, was doing with the health service in England.

“Wales is getting rapidly worse compared to England, where things are slightly improving,” said Mr Davies.

“The NHS in England use the private sector to increase capacity and the situation is so bad in Wales now that just over the boarder in Herefordshire the health board have advised GPs not to send their patients to Welsh hospitals because of the waiting times.”

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