NHS: Doctors' broken system claims dismissed by health minister

March's NHS performance figures showed were the worst A&E figures on record

Doctors' claims the Welsh NHS is "broken" have been dismissed by the health minister.

But Eluned Morgan did admit the system was under "immense" pressure.

The claim was made by the Royal College of Emergency Medicine (RCEM) following the worst set of accident and emergency (A&E) on record.

The Welsh Tories said NHS targets were "going in the wrong direction" and Plaid Cymru said problems "existed for years" before the pandemic.

Thursday's figures showed both the four-hour and 12-hour A&E waiting times in March were the worst on record.

Ambulance response times also deteriorated to the second worst on record.

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Speaking on the BBC Politics Wales programme, Ms Morgan said: "It is tough, there's no question about it and what we can do is our very best to address that system.

"The demand on the system is like nothing we've seen before."

Worst waiting times in emergency units

• Only 65.1% of people were seen within four hours at A&E - down on the previous worst of 65.6% in October

• This dropped as low as 44.1% at Glan Clwyd Hospital in Denbighshire and 46.2% at Wrexham Maelor

• More patients were also waiting longer than 12 hours to be treated than in any month to date - 10,886. The target is no-one should be waiting this long

• Average daily attendances to A&E during March showed a sharp rise - 232 more attendances a day than the previous month

Asked if she agreed with the RCEM, Ms Morgan replied: "We're managing to see around 200,000 people a month - that's not a broken system.

"I made a surprise visit to Cardiff accident and emergency on Friday night and the scenes were very difficult.

"It's clear there are people there, they're not time-wasters, these are people who are genuinely in pain and need to be seen.

"But the pressure on the system is immense and that's why we need to make sure that we see less flowing into the system, more prevention."

Official figures showed there were 8,757 patients in Wales' hospitals on Thursday.

Ms Morgan said more than 1,000 of these were ready to be discharged but could not "because of the fragility of the social care system", causing an NHS-wide backlog.

NHS waiting lists have grown for a 22nd successive month, with almost 700,000 non-urgent treatments and operations waiting to be carried out and more than 250,000 waiting more than nine months.

On Tuesday, the Welsh government will publish its long-awaited plan on how it intends to tackle the huge waiting list backlog.

The aim is to return to pre-pandemic levels by the end of this Senedd term in 2026.

Ms Morgan said operations and treatments would be conducted "on a much broader footprint in future" with people potentially travelling across Wales.

Plaid Cymru's health spokesman Rhun ap Iorwerth said: "These aren't problems that have suddenly appeared because of the pandemic, these are problems that have been made worse by the pandemic... but that existed for years before because of a lack of strategic planning by the Welsh government to put our health and care system on a stable and sustainable footing.

"We need to get to that point and sadly we're a long way away."

Russell George, the Welsh Conservatives' health spokesman, said: "My concern is that the targets are going in the wrong direction.

"But the main issue is not just about recruiting, but about retaining staff and I think when you're under huge pressure and it puts pressure on all those staff and staff are looking around thinking 'is this the career for me?'"

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