Thank you for writing to me concerning corridor care.
I recognise the immense challenges hospitals are currently facing with capacity, bed space and patient flow following 26 years of Labour mismanagement, but this does not change the fact that it is unacceptable for patients to be treated in such unsafe conditions.
My Welsh Conservative colleagues and I brought forward a debate in February in the Senedd on ending corridor care in Wales, in which we noted the RCN’s ‘Ending corridor care in Wales’ report and called on the Welsh Government to enact the eight recommendations put forward in full. I am disappointed that the Welsh Government chose not to support our calls.
This overbearing capacity issue on our hospitals is having a devastating impact on our ambulance services also. Data from February shows that ambulances have been waiting nearly two hours on average to hand over patients outside Welsh hospitals, with well over 20,000 ambulances having spent more than four hours waiting to hand over patients to hospitals last year. The Chief Executive of the Welsh Ambulance Service, Jason Killens, stated to the Senedd’s Health and Social Care Committee last year that they are losing around 20% of their entire fleet capacity every month as a result of these delays.
Welsh Conservatives have announced plans to take the radical steps necessary to improve this situation – including the largest recruitment and retention plan in the history of the Welsh NHS, strict performance targets and accountability measures for top NHS executives, improved pay and contracts for social care workers and more funding for frontline and preventative care, just to name a few of our proposals.
My colleagues and I will continue to put pressure on the Welsh Government to adopt our approach and finally address these concerns.
I thank you again for taking the time to contact me.