Future 1st Class Health Service for Gwent "kicked into the long grass"

12.16.00pm GMT Mon 19th Jan 2009

Mike German discusses the future of health in the Gwent area with Lib Dem parliamentary spokesman Ed Townsend

"A sticking-plaster job rather than radical surgery"

The future of the NHS in Gwent as a first class service for the 21st century has been described as being "kicked into the long grass" by a senior member of the National Assembly for Wales.

Michael German AM, Liberal Democrat Assembly Member for South East Wales, described the decision to delay the implementation of 'Clinical Futures', a report to radically change the ways in which health services are delivered across Gwent as "the worst of all worlds."

"For years we have had public consultations and discussions in the National Assembly about moving to a new health service that would provide world class services at all levels and bring health care closer to people in Gwent. Now we are being told to make do with a 2nd class service.

"We were promised a new modern vision for the health service for Gwent. In stead of the radical surgery our healthcare service needs we end up with a sticking-plaster job of patching up hospitals: a waste of money."

"This is the first major reorganisation of health care in Wales and the Plaid-Labour assembly government has fallen at the first hurdle with no clear indication of when a 'green light for go' will be given. Patients and the health service have been left in limbo.

It has emerged that the Health Minister, Edwina Hart, confirmed to Mr. German that she received the report looking at Community Service plans by Dr. Chris Jones in November 2008. "Since then, despite asking, we've been told nothing to the point of being kept in the dark."

Mr. German went further in criticising the Labour-Plaid coalition government saying that "On Friday we saw the First Minister, Rhodri Morgan, singing and dancing about a new hospital in Ystrad Mynach. It was a staged event to divert attention from the awful news about Gwent's NHS on Monday."