05.10.11
NHS Wales’ record attacked by Lansley
Health Secretary Andrew Lansley took aim at NHS Wales in his speech to the Conservative Party conference yesterday, saying that Wales’ deaths from infection, waiting times and budget cuts all show that the health service in the country needs reform to make it more like its English counterpart.
NHE was at the party conference in Manchester when Lansley said: “In England now there are new cancer drugs available to patients, which are not available on the NHS in Wales. Yes, in Wales, run by a Labour Government. Don’t listen to the absurd inventions of Labour on the NHS, when you can look and see what Labour in power means to the NHS in Wales.
“In Wales, NHS budgets [are being] cut by more than 8% over three years. In England, we are increasing the NHS budget in real terms, each year. In England, the NHS treats over nine out of ten patients within 18 weeks. In Wales, it is barely seven out of ten.
“In Wales deaths from Clostridium difficile four years ago were the same as in England? Now in Wales they are twice as high as in England.
“Labour should stop scaremongering about the NHS in England and start adopting in Wales the changes we are making. The people of Wales deserve better.”
But Labour’s Welsh health minister Lesley Griffiths said the NHS in England was being “dismantled” under the Conservatives, and said waiting lists in England are “running out of control”.
She told reporters: “Unlike the Tories, we will not privatise the NHS – and we make no apologies for that whatsoever.”
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