Welsh Health Minister blasts UK Government's 'tissue of lies'

Firstly, a good number of my constituents receive excellent care at The County Hospital in Hereford, and have done for many years because The County is their nearest District General Hospital. Whilst I know that there are problems in the Health service in Wales, I am alarmed that the current rhetoric might give my constituents the incorrect impression that they are not welcome or able to access treatment in Hereford, thereby putting them at risk of harm. Secondly, in terms of payment, you will well be aware that all treatment received by Powys patients in Hereford is then paid for by Powys Teaching Local Health Board. There should be no inference whatsoever that any of my constituents are receiving or expecting to receive treatment that is not then paid for. Finally, I take issue with you claiming that my constituents being treated in Hereford causes ‘great pressure’ on the system in England. Actually, having Welsh patients treated at The County Hospital helps maintain the services there by contributing significantly to the critical mass of patients needed to sustain a hospital of The County’s size.

We have a Welsh Government that consistently sets itself lower targets on waiting times, access to diagnostic tests, and the ambulance service. It then fails to achieve these lower targets. When comparisons can be made between the 3 countries, then in some areas the Welsh performance is shockingly poor. Take for example, access times for an MRI scan. Only 1% of patients wait more than 6 weeks for an MRI scan in England, only 2% in Scotland, whilst 40% of Welsh patients are waiting more than 6 weeks. Other Welsh diagnostic waiting times fare no better.

The Welsh Government’s answer to this is that demand for these tests has risen. It is true that demand has risen. But the rise has been even greater in the other countries. Over a three year period, the number waiting for an MRI scan in Wales rose by 33%, in England by 41% and in Scotland by 62%. This is therefore no excuse for Wales’ unacceptably long waiting times.

I was disappointed to receive your letter of today's date.

There is no attempt whatsoever to subvert an independent OECD report - on the contrary we would like it to go ahead so that all parts of the UK NHS can learn from each other.

I believe transparency can be the biggest single driver of improvement in healthcare but the actions of the Welsh administration in blocking the visit by OECD analysts suggest you believe otherwise.

Earlier this year, the Welsh Government gave written agreement to participate in the four nations review in response to a letter from me. In that letter, I set out a detailed timetable for the review, which included the provision that the final report should be available to all four countries from mid-February of next year.

But on a matter as important as this I do not agree with you that their findings should be withheld from the public. This is a significant piece of research that will be of benefit to healthcare quality throughout the UK. The quality of the piece of work will suffer hugely without the ability to benchmark and contrast the performance of the four home nations and I believe we owe it to taxpayers who fund the NHS to show we are willing to learn from other parts of the UK as to where our performance can be improved. So I would urge you again in the strongest terms to allow the publication to go ahead.

You claim repeatedly that the NHS in Wales is not performing worse than the NHS in England -in which case you have nothing to fear from open and independent scrutiny of the NHS in the four home nations. But your actions suggest you really believe the opposite to be the case -otherwise why would the Welsh government cancel a pre-arranged OECD study visit at short notice? Independent scrutiny of healthcare quality for the benefit of patients should be above party politics. I urge you to think about patients in Wales before you take a decision with huge ramifications for the quality of the care they receive.

For every one English patient admitted for treatment in a Welsh hospital, five Welsh patients are admitted for treatment in an English hospital, which creates huge pressure for them. I have written to the Welsh Health Minister to say that the NHS is happy to treat more Welsh patients, but the trouble is that NHS Wales is not prepared to pay for it. That is why Welsh patients get a second-class health service.

Local Health Boards have arrangements in place to pay for treatment in English hospitals, any suggestion that they aren't paid is nonsense

I write in reply to your letter of yesterday's date. As a direct result of it, this is a final request for you to adhere to the normal conventions surrounding the publication of independent reports and end your attempts to subvert the process. If you do not, we will have to consider commissioning and publishing our own independent study by the OECD in a way which does not risk contamination by the overt politicisation of the process for which you are directly responsible.

The assertion in your letter that you feel you have a right to quote selectively from an unpublished report in the lead up to the General Election is truly shocking - it flies in the face of every principle of the proper conduct of public life. Your failure to clearly and openly set out such an intention at the time when the study was commissioned will appear to some to be deliberate and deceptive.

The NHS in Wales will not be the victim of any Conservative party ploy to drag its reputation through the mud for entirely partisan political purposes.

At a time when the four home nations of the UK need to be working closely together to address the threat of Ebola, your willingness to put the interests of your party above those of the public is especially reprehensible. By the time your letter, marked Official-Sensitive, arrived at my office, it had already been handed to one of your backbench MPs and to the London media. That was grossly discourteous and demeaning of the office you are privileged to hold. As it has already been used to augment the tissue of lies which are told on behalf of your party, you will not be surprised that I have decided that this letter too will be available for publication.