The Welsh NHS is the latest political football

I took a phone call the other day to join a conversation on BBC Radio Wales’ Sunday Supplement programme to talk about the crisis in the Welsh NHS. Hmm. That doesn’t happen every day.

What crisis, I hear you ask? Short answer: a bit of health and a lot of politics.

• English trust to stop cross-border elective work

I put it that way round, not because I doubt the concerns expressed about poor care and disturbing mortality rates at the Princess of Wales Hospital in Bridgend and five (of 17) other Welsh hospitals, but because my phone call coincided with related reports in the London Conservative press – not famous for its concern for Welsh public affairs.

The clincher was a headline on the influential conservativehome.com on the same day: “The Tories will talk a lot about Wales in the election campaign”.

‘Welsh Mid Staffs’ scares

As a tactic this should hardly be a surprise, though it seems Mark Drakeford, Labour’s health minister in the Welsh government, was caught out.

‘Historically, Welsh patients have crossed the border to Bristol or Shrewsbury. Harder now though to be a “health tourist”’

David Cameron has been trotting out Welsh Labour’s health “cuts” (not to be confused with his own) at Prime Minister’s Questions for months to ward off Miliband attacks.

You can’t help noticing he treats devolved Scotland’s Alex Salmond with warier respect.

So what’s been happening to generate “Welsh Mid Staffs” scares?

Well, obviously Cardiff has chosen different NHS priorities; no big new hospitals (“behemoths” Rhodri Morgan called them), more work on public health and primary care.

Keogh letter

That seems to have resulted in longer hospital, ambulance and diagnostic waiting times, and poorer surgical outcomes. Predictable enough. Wales is poorer than England (Welsh wages are about 70 per cent of those in England) so its health will be poorer too and, historically, patients have crossed the border to Bristol or Shrewsbury.

Harder now though to be a “health tourist”.

Specifically, what seems to have triggered the row is a freedom of information request from Charlotte Leslie, Bristol North West’s energetic new Tory MP who also got stroppy over Mid Staffs (though Bristol has its own NHS troubles this month).

She unearthed a July letter from Sir Bruce Keogh alerting his Welsh counterpart, Dr Chris Jones, to unproven but worrying data – admittedly already published by the proudly transparent Welsh government.

Keogh’s letter was what Fleet Street calls “ignored” and Cardiff’s line remains that they have their problems in hand, thank you. An investigation has been ruled out. But Leslie’s FOI discovery made its way into the papers.

Do things differently

Fair enough, Wales doesn’t have a Care Quality Commission inspection regime – or for that matter (remember the row over its poor showing in the PISA exam league?) an Ofsted regime for schools.

“We do thing differently here,” they say. Fair enough again if voters are happy with local choices – which some (polls say 10 per cent) clearly aren’t.

After all, it was veteran Welsh Labour MP Ann Clwyd – a natural boat rocker – who very publicly blew the whistle on the poor treatment her dying husband received and was later recruited by Cameron to examine such issues.

‘Political football or not, Welsh ministers should treat this as a wake-up call or someone will start scoring goals’

The British Medical Association, the Royal College of Nursing and some academic experts seem to have rallied indignantly around Drakeford, symptoms of Labour’s “one party state” regime in Wales, so critics will say. Cameron too in the coming election.

There’s also a case for being cautious about comparing statistics that may be collected differently and be different because more people die in hospices or care homes in England, flattering its hospital mortality stats.

It’s a bit grubby to deploy the Welsh NHS as a campaign football (will it win the Tories any Welsh votes?) but Labour does it in England.

Political football or not, Welsh ministers should treat it as a wake-up call – or someone will start scoring goals.

Michael White writes about politics for The Guardian