The Tories lie about the NHS in Wales to distract us from what they’re doing in England

Today we have seen the Tory lie machine out once again attacking Wales and distorting the truth about the NHS in Wales. It doesn’t take a genius to work out why: they are trying to distract attention from the harm the Tory-led Government is doing to the NHS in England.

Yes, like in all health systems, there are pressures on the NHS in Wales. But the reality is that the NHS in Wales has improved dramatically over the last decade thanks to Labour investment and reform – though of course there is still further to go. Let’s not forget that when the Tories were last in charge of the NHS in Wales, before 1997, people were waiting two years for operations. That’s why people in Wales don’t trust the Tories with the NHS – or any other public services for that matter.

And while it’s misleading to make simplistic comparisons of the NHS in England and Wales – Wales has an older population and higher levels of ill health – it’s worth noting that the independent Nuffield Trust recently found that no one country’s health service was consistently ahead of or behind the others. Indeed, it found that that the performance gap between England and the rest had narrowed in recent years, with Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland improving faster on some measures.

On cancer care, for example, in Wales, almost 90% of people start their cancer treatment within 62 days, whereas in England only 84% do. Ed Miliband’s announcement at the weekend that Labour will guarantee a maximum one-week wait for cancer tests and results will help improve English performance, as speeding up diagnosis helps people get treatment quicker.

Despite Tory Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt’s attacks on the NHS in Wales, one of his major initiatives – a campaign to “save up to 6,000 lives nationally” through a new focus on patient safety – is based on a model that has been running in Wales since 2008 (though Hunt’s version is less ambitious – Wales’ campaign was to save a 1,000 lives, far more per head than Hunt’s campaign in England).

As well as working to prevent instances of neglect or poor care happening in the first place, it is essential that, when such instances are discovered, they are acted on and lessons learned.

In Wales, where concerns have been raised about particular aspects of care at specific hospitals, the Welsh Government has ordered focused, independent reviews to identify and resolve any issues – like the recent independent inquiry into care at hospitals in Bridgend and Neath Port Talbot, and the current inquiry a health board has ordered into allegations at Rhyl.

These inquiries have led to wider action too. For example, the recent report on Bridgend’s Princess of Wales Hospital resulted in unannounced spot-checks being carried out to check the care of elderly people in 70 wards in all district general hospitals in Wales. These checks found “no systemic issues of concern”, along with numerous examples of good practice, which far outweighed the few, isolated examples where shortcomings in care were identified. The spot checks will now be extended to look at the standard of care elderly patients receive on mental health wards in hospital settings.

So the Welsh Government has acted on concerns where they have been raised.

And in Wales, there is also a mandatory review of case notes for every death in hospital – a level of scrutiny that does not exist in England.

But the real reason that the Tories are so keen to distort the evidence about the NHS in Wales is because that they can’t defend their own record in England.

Under David Cameron, it’s been the worst year in A&E for a decade, with almost a million people waiting more than four hours.

It’s getting harder to see your GP since Ministers scrapped Labour’s 48-hr appointment guarantee. The vast majority of NHS staff now say that David Cameron’s NHS reorganisation has harmed patient care; it also wasted £3bn, while budgets for elderly care have been slashed, pushing services into crisis.

Recent reviews into care problems have found that a major cause is a shortage of nurses and, under David Cameron most nurses say their ward is dangerously understaffed. Yet the Tories won’t match Labour’s commitment to 20,000 more nurses by 2020 – paid for by a Mansion Tax on properties over £2m and tackling tax-avoidance – which would help ensure safe staffing levels in England.

The truth is that the NHS in England is going into reverse under David Cameron and that is why people do not trust him with it. No wonder he and his supporters in the press are attacking Wales in a bid to get people looking the other way.