David Chadwick

It is an honour to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Stuart. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Chelmsford (Marie Goldman) for securing this vital debate, which could not be more timely for my constituents. I want to use my contribution to offer a warning from Wales about what happens when Governments distance themselves from the decisions being taken by NHS trusts or boards under their control. Community hospitals across Powys, including in Knighton, Llanidloes, Llandrindod Wells, Ystradgynlais, Welshpool and Machynlleth, face a perilous future, with vital local services potentially lost. Powys teaching health board is currently running a consultation called “Better Together”, which proposes that the number of hospital beds be slashed from 146 to as few as 60, with further cuts made to minor injuries units, mental health services and X-ray units. My constituents and I fear that the proposals essentially amount to closure by stealth for some hospitals, particularly at Llandrindod Wells and Ystradgynlais. All the GP practices in Powys have written to express their concerns about the proposals, which have provoked enormous public opposition, with nearly 10,000 people signing my petition against the cuts and hundreds attending public meetings that I have organised across the county. At the same time, in order to save money, the same health board has been slowing down treatment times for patients awaiting surgery in neighbouring health boards and trusts in Shropshire and Herefordshire. Despite that, the new Plaid Cymru Welsh Government have repeatedly refused to intervene, insisting that the issues are operational matters for the health board. We now face the extraordinary situation in which a health board is putting forward proposals that appear to directly contradict its Government’s own stated policy to improve step-down care. Welsh Ministers refuse to take responsibility and step in before it is too late. The health boards and trusts in Wales are accountable to the Welsh Health Minister, yet successive Welsh Health Ministers have refused to take responsibility for their funding. Welsh Ministers are responsible for the financial contributions of health boards; they cannot wash their hands of the consequences when those boards propose deep cuts to frontline services. It is striking that, while Governments elsewhere in the UK have sought to strengthen scrutiny and intervention in struggling NHS trusts, the approach in Wales has too often been to place greater distance between Ministers and local health boards. It is important that the Welsh Health Minister takes responsibility for his job and the Welsh health service that he runs, listens to the people of Powys and scraps the proposal for the removal of hospital beds across our communities.