Calls have been made for Newport City Council to declare a health emergency to send a clear message to the Labour Government.
Natasha Asghar MS has written to the local authority’s leader amid growing concern about the state of NHS services across Wales, with waiting times, A&E pressures, and ambulance delays now among the worst on record.
Two councils have already recognised the scale of the problem. Denbighshire councillors heard disturbing accounts of patients lying on A&E floors without basic dignity, while Conwy Council last night also declared a health emergency, citing unsustainable pressure on health and social care services.
Natasha, who represents South Wales East in the Welsh Parliament, said:
“After 26 years of Labour running the NHS in Wales, the system is letting people down. We have longer waiting lists than England, worse A&E performance, and heartbreaking stories of people waiting hours for ambulances or being sent home without the care they need.”
Latest figures show that just under 7,000 people in Wales are waiting more than two years for treatment, making patients in Wales hundreds of times more likely to face extreme delays than those in England.
A&E performance is at its worst level for three years, and ambulance response times continue to cause alarm across the country.
Natasha said:
“The Welsh Government talks about funding increases, but the reality is very different. Once inflation and the impact of higher National Insurance costs on NHS wage bills are taken into account, this is a real terms cut to frontline services.”
In her letter to the leader of Newport City Council, Natasha outlined a series of local examples including a constituent being forced to fly to Lithuania for private treatment due to long NHS waiting lists and a cancer patient having to sleep in a cupboard at the Royal Gwent due to overcrowding.
The Welsh Conservative politician added:
“These are not statistics. These are real people, in our communities, being failed when they are at their most vulnerable.”
Natasha is urging Newport Council to follow the lead of Denbighshire and Conwy by formally declaring a health emergency and calling on the Welsh Government to take urgent, decisive action to fix NHS performance in Wales.
“Councils have a duty to speak up when services are failing residents. Declaring a health emergency would send a clear message that the status quo is unacceptable and that people’s lives must come before political comfort,” Natasha said.
