19/01/2016 BBC Wales Today

Every hospital emergency department here is "on the edge" -

the warning from the head of the Royal College of Emergency

And after yesterday's steel job losses in Port Talbot -

the Welsh government will ask the Chancellor for enterprise zone

status so that tax breaks can be offered.

Every hospital emergency department in Wales is "on the edge" and too

many patients spend too long - some more than 24 hours

That's the warning from the head of the Royal College

of Emergency Medicine here who says staff shortages and excessive

workloads could put patients at risk.

But the Welsh Government insists the problems here aren't unique,

Our health correspondent Owain Clarke reports.

It is first thing in the morning but the emergency department

here at the University Hospital of Wales in Cardiff is already full.

Inside, there is one empty bed, kept free in case

Last week, we saw a lot of ice so we saw a lot of patients come

It is a difficult time for the frail elderly as well,

who do tend to get more infections at this time of year so generally

the department and the hospitals are more busy in January.

To ease the logjam in the A, staff from

around the hospital have come to discuss how many beds can

We do have a resus space but there is no capacity

in our ambulances outside of the minute.

Even in a hospital of this size, if they can find just a handful

of beds this morning, it can mean the difference

They say the effort has already led to fewer ambulances queueing

But according to one of Wales's leading emergency doctors

who works on the other side of the country in Wrexham,

a shortage of hospital beds and emergency doctors

means too many patients in Wales spend too long in emergency units.

None of the emergency departments in Wales has the required number

of consultants that we think is a minimum from the Royal College.

In Wrexham, we are four consultants short.

We have six compared to the required minimum number of ten.

Every emergency department is on the edge.

We are ever so close to a patient becoming really poorly

within our department and that could have a

knock-on effect and have disastrous outcomes.

The latest figures show that the proportion of patients

who had to wait more than 12 hours in an urgent care unit has gone down

since last winter, but despite the milder

weather there wasn't an improvement in the four-hour target and arguably

the pressures are being felt most here at Morriston Hospital

in Swansea, with just 58% of patients

spending less than four hours in this department,

The minor injuries unit in Singleton and Neath Port and the A service

in Llanelli take some of the less serious cases so those don't come

here but what that does mean is that when you look at our patients here,

a much higher percentage of them are completed

patients, so for example, a typical emergency department might

be 70% minor injuries, 30% major - we are

The local Health Board says it is taking steps to ease

This team's job is to find out what extra support frail patients

We have measured the length of stay in the over 80s within Morriston

Hospital and it has dropped quite significantly from somewhere

between 20 days in hospital and it has

actually dropped down to seven days in the latest data,

Any bed that becomes available will be filled

straightaway and what is clear is the pressure is on both

here and in emergency units across the country.

And with the temperatures dropping, it could get worse.

A group of Welsh Conservative MPs is calling on the Chancellor

to reverse his decision to devolve some income tax powers to Wales

In the letter, seen by BBC Wales, five of the party's MPs wrote

to George Osborne to say his policy change,

announced in his autumn statement, was "disrespectful" and breached

The Welsh Conservatives say they have long called for the Welsh

government to be more accountable for its finances.

A woman found dead in Usk last week died from "ligature pressure

The body of Georgina Symonds was found in a workshop on a farm

Peter Morgan, from Abergavenny, has been charged with her murder.

Detectives have made fresh appeal for information,

40 years after the death of a Welsh teenager in London.

15-year-old Peter Watts left his home in Colwyn Bay in

1976 after leaving a note for his parents saying

he was going to help a friend with homework.

He was found collapsed in a Euston Road underpass in London

the following morning with head injuries, and died

A meeting of steel workers and union representatives

has taken place in Port Talbot tonight following yesterday's

announcement of a thousand job losses at Tata Steel across the UK.

The majority of the jobs will be lost in South Wales,

750 across Port Talbot and Llanwern in Newport.

Tonight's meeting has been about getting an understanding

with our representatives of the process that

we are going to follow, what has been announced

And it started to develop the roles that we

have to now take with the Welsh assembly Government,

who we have a meeting with tomorrow, and how the pressure can be put

onto the UK Government so that it can understand

what needs to be done to save steel-making in the UK.

Those job losses in the steel industry were again top

The Welsh government will ask the Chancellor George Osborne

to give Port Talbot enterprise zone status so that tax breaks can be

There were further clashes in the House of Commons over

the steel industry today, and details emerged of a task force

which will meet for the first time tomorrow.

Here's our political editor Nick Servini.

The morning after one of the bleakest days

Nothing can change yesterday's events.

What has been occupying minds today is the action needed to prevent

In the meantime, the accusations at Westminster continue to fly

as the UK Government insisted it had done all it could.

When the bankers bonuses were threatened, he immediately shot

over to Brussels with an army of lawyers to defend them.

He would jump into a helicopter for a Tory fundraiser,

but it has taken him four months to lift a finger for a steelworks

Well, we want a successful financial services industry because hundreds

of thousands of people across the country work in it

but we also want a successful manufacturing and steel industry.

There was an altogether gentler tone at the assembly as ministers

confirmed that they had asked the Chancellor to make Port Talbot

They also gave more details of the task force meeting in Cardiff

tomorrow along the lines of one set up after the major losses

were announced at the oil refinery in Pembrokeshire in 2014.

Nevertheless, at the assembly, as in the comments,

there were questions for the Government about why

Why did the Minister wait until the job losses have been

announced before writing to the Chancellor of the Exchequer

to pursue the issue of an enterprise zone?

She's right to say that we knew there were challenges for the steel

industry, but in terms of the scale of the job losses,

we did not know about that until the end of last week.

The job losses brought the problems of the steel industry

Now, what the political parties will all agree on are the measures

needed to soften the blow, particularly for the younger workers

What would be far more divisive is to try to create the kind

of conditions for the long-term survival of the industry in Wales.

The question will be - can they set aside their differences

At the heart of this will be how to deal with the cheap Chinese steel

which is flooding the market and pushing prices down.

It is difficult to determine whether it is legitimate prices that

are coming in or illegitimate and that is what they are working on.

I mean, I agree with you that it could have been done faster

but actually a lot of it from the UK perspective

is because our own Government has not been effective in applying

and pursuing these things as fast as they could do.

It was described today as part of Wales' heritage .

All efforts will now be made for the Port Talbot steelworks

to become part of Wales's future as well.

Rugby, and with the start of the Six Nations just a fortnight

Wales coach, Warren Gatland, has named 37 players in his squad.

Cardiff Blues wing, Tom James, has been re-called,

six years after winning his last cap.

Aled Davies from the Scarlets is the only uncapped player.

Wales start their campaign against last year's winners,

The coaching team back to a 37 man squad, slightly larger than usual

due to a number of injured leading players.

With the likes of Captain Sam Warburton and Scarlets full-back

Liam Williams are on their way back to fitness as another Six Nations

I think we're in a good place the moment and we've got some good

players that have come back from injury.

We still have one or two players that have picked up injuries

during the World Cup but I think 31 of that squad were involved

in the World Cup so there is a lot of continuity.

As well as the comfort of consistency, the head coach has

It has been six years since the Blues wing Tom James

I have been pretty impressed with Tom over the Christmas period.

It was disappointing to lose him in the Rugby World Cup.

He was selected in our original squad.

I think he adds a little bit of an X Factor.

Among the forwards, Josh Turnbull makes a return following a two-year

absence and Alun Wyn Jones after re-signing his national dual

contact with Ospreys features in a powerful contingent of forwards

with four British Lions in the back row.

And along with the older heads, Gatland has chosen one uncapped

player, Aled Davies, picked in light of the injured

Also in the backs, Rhys Priestland is included, despite the initial

announcement that he was to step back from international rugby.

And Jonathan Davies and Hallam Amos made a welcome return from injury.

So on a beautiful day here at the Vale hotel,

Six Nations has kicked off for Wales.

They will be hoping for a swift return to key injured players

as they aim for a perfect start to the 2016 campaign with a win

against the holders Ireland in Dublin on the 7th of February.

Very cold and in fact the coldest night of the winter so far for many

of us. A widespread frost and some freezing fog as well. The

temperature could fall as low as minus seven Celsius in some places

by the end of the night. A widespread sharp frost for many of

us and that is how we start tomorrow. Frosty, freezing fog, the

warning in force, but otherwise, bright clear and sunny. A crisp

winter morning. Freezing fog across the rest of the UK. They could

linger all day in some spots. Otherwise, we have an icy road

warning in force across Scotland. Many places bright with winter

sunshine tomorrow. Parts of northern England tomorrow a little bit

cloudy. Out of seven Celsius in Belfast. In Wales tomorrow, a bright

and sunny afternoon, lots of blue sky. Any freezing fog should have

disappeared from many places. To Celsius to three Celsius, up to six

Celsius on the Pembrokeshire coast. Another widespread frost tomorrow.

Cloud increasing during the night, some spots of rain in the West.

Temperatures staying above freezing. On Thursday, much cloudier, mist and

fog patches, also some splashes of rain and less cold with a

south-easterly breeze and that sets the scene for Friday. Much milder,

into double figures, some rain, clearing to drier and brighter

weather. Saturday looks dry at the moment with temperatures much higher

than recently saw a change on the way turning milder later this week.

The cold spell coming to an end. From all of us on the

programme, goodnight.