Janet Finch-Saunders

I remind my colleague that it was in fact the Labour Government that gave us the massive deficit facing the United Kingdom, the same deficit that your leader forgot to mention in his speech, and this is a man who wants to lead our country—I think not.

In putting together my contribution today, even I was shocked just how easy it is to find reference to the problems facing our health service here in Wales. Type ‘health service in Wales’ into Google and the third entry reads,

‘Doctors warn: Welsh NHS faces “imminent meltdown” amid call for inquiry into nation's health service’.

Yes, that is from the British Medical Council. Another entry, dated only last December reads

‘Wales health: Challenging year for the NHS’,

stating that,

‘It is under intense pressure, with services being reorganised, financial constraints acute and many targets being missed throughout the year.’

It goes on to describe the demand, stating that this year the Welsh NHS has ‘struggled to cope’ with ‘hospitals overwhelmed’, ambulances queued up and ‘hundreds of planned operations’ cancelled. It states that the Minister at that time took over a service ‘lurching from crisis to crisis’.