Health The Wales Report

It's the biggest service run by the Welsh Government -

So how are the parties, those asking for your vote,

going to find answers to some of the challenges facing

Welcome to our first programme of Election Wales 2016.

There's just a month to go before the people of Wales elect 60

Assembly members and a new Welsh Government.

And the issue that will be crucial over the next few weeks

With a total budget of ?7.1 billion, employing more than 70,000 people,

it's facing increasing demand from an ageing population,

with more complex and expensive treatments, and all with

So tonight, we will be asking the five main parties how

they would respond to these challenges over the next five years.

And remember, you too can join the conversation on Twitter -

Before we look for some answers, we've been to one A department

in Glangwili General Hospital in Carmarthen, to ask people

on the frontline the daily challenges they face.

This morning I am on an early shift, we were given hand over, the

department is full, bar one resuscitation bay. Let us have a

look. Because people are living longer, they have complex needs.

They have multi-medical problems, and getting sicker with this, and

sometimes you know, you cannot sustain their care within the

community setting, so hence they end up in the emergency department. It

is becoming more normal unfortunately that we have the

department quite full. Normally the night doctors would have been able

to clear the the. Over the past few months you come in and there are

about ten, 11 beds we are occupied by medical patients, surgical

patients so we are starting the day on a backlog because the department

is full and you have people coming in any way, so it is becoming more

common. It didn't used to be like that, we have having full

departments first thing in the morning. Every day is different.

More recently I found that things are more challenging, mostly because

we are not having the patient throw through the department. It is an A

department. You expect people to come in, go home, come in, move

directly to a superbialty bed. We have the patient staying in because

there is nowhere to put them. They come in, they are seen and there is

no place to off load them, because there are no beds.

From my perspective, one of the main issues that a new Welsh Government

should face is the interface between health and social care. Looks

intact. There are currently too many patients in hospitals round Wales,

who don't require the care that that Acute Hospital is able to provide.

Unfortunately, it takes too long to safely get them back into the

community, there is then a domino-effect, which often leads to

ambulances being parked outside full, emergency units. A new Welsh

Government should address this as soon as possible.

Views from the A Department at Glangwili Hospital there.

Joining me tonight - the health spokespeople for each

For Labour, the Health Minister, Mark Drakeford.

Darren Millar from the Conservative party.

The Liberal Democrats' Kirsty Williams and Caroline Jones

There are of course other parties standing in the Assembly elections -

there's a full list on the BBC Wales Politics website.

After the close of nomination there's will be a full list on the

BBC Wales politics website. So thank you all very much for joining us.

Let us try and start. On a note of consensus this evening. Would you

all acknowledge that the well NHS is facing erincreasing demands, ever

decreases resources or finite resources and whoever wins next

month has to make big choices, and say no to some things. Darren

Miller? It is important to recognise there are pressures across the whole

of the United Kingdom and those pressures are also here in Wales,

but it is not true to say that we need necessarily cut the National

Health Service budget. My party has maintained a commitment which has

knots been seen from any of the other parties that with need to

envest more. What we have seen is a government over the past few years

which has cut the NHS budget in real terms. But tough decisions to be

made. Very tough decisions. Caroline Jones would you agree? Yes, but we

need further investment into the NHS. We know that staff morale on

the front line services is at an all time low and people are wanting to

do their jobs, in the best possible way they can. Their care about their

job but they are unable to because their hands are tied with an ageing

population. Kirsty Williams, you can promise the earth but there will be

some things you have to say to the people of we'll, we can't deliver

that. There are big decisions ahead of us, and how we plan the NHS, to

service properly for the next 10-20 year, which is why party has been

saying that job can't be just left to politician, we believe in setting

up a cross-party, a non-party commission, to engage with the

staff, and with the people of Wales to decide what Health Service we

need. Now we persuaded the Welsh Government that commission should be

set up but unfortunately it failed because of the partieses who didn't

want to join in. I hope after the election we can create that space

that allow us to have that conversation about what kind of

Health Service we want as we go forward. What I am looking for is

honesty at the outset, that the NHS in Wales can't do everything, and we

have to be straight, and you as politicians have to be straight with

the people of Wales about that. Yes, but the NHS also needs to work more

effectively and that is the responsibility of the next Welsh

Government, it is not to day to day micro manage the NHS but to take the

big decisions that Kirstie has alluded to, and that is why I think

that the next Government has to start on a major programme of health

and social care, integration, and a proper workforce plan for the future

generation of NHS workers, if we don't do that, if whoever is in

Government doesn't do this, it will let down the NHS in not taking the

big decisions it needs. Mark Drakeford you are here as somebody

with great experience of running the NHS. There has to be honesty. Of

course there has, the pressures in the NHS are real and the product of

our great success in people living longer and better, the answer

doesn't lie in the hands of the NHS, that is for sure, unless we invest

in the round in social care as you heard in ta clip, as well as the

NHS, we don't provide people with a service they need, neither is the

honesty all about politicians, it is about a conversation with the

public, about what the public expect. And how they interact with

the Health Service, as well and Kirstie's idea of a forward looking

inquiry involving the public, asking them some of these questions is a

very important idea. I will come on to that but let us look at hospitals

in particular, because we looked there at A Mark Drakeford, the

head of the Royal College of Emergency medicine in Wales said in

January, that absolutely every emergency department in Wales is on

the edge. Now that is quite an indictment, isn't it. Is he right?

He wasn't right, because here we are in April and those emergency

departments are all still there, all still working and have worked every

day since January. Just about. No, no. Much more than just about. It

has been a tough winter, the second half has been particularly tough,

but no emergency department in Wales has ever closed its doors, we

continue to see huge numbers of people, in the month of February,

for every single minute of every hour of every day, two people turned

up at A departments in Wales. So the demand is enormous, but the

system copes. And that is really important for the people who work in

it. That is as good as it gets you just cope. The system is just

coping, and it is operating on the good will of the doctor, nurses and

other staff in the NHS who go above and beyond what I think can be

reasonably expected of them on many occasions. The minister is correct.

Departments haven't closed but they haven't been able to meet the

Government's targets about how long people should wait in an A

department and that is because as we heard in the film, there is a lack

of flow through our hospital system and alike of beds, and a lack of

beds in our community, so people can... Let us look what you are

offering instead. Darren Millar how would you fix A departments? We

have lost one in five beds in our hospitals and that has caused

problems at hospital front doors and it manifests with ambulances cueing

up outside. We have seen that this week, in Wales and that is not good

enough. What would we do? Invest in Community Hospitals to give extra

bed capacity so people can be discharged into them, that is one

idea, I think that would make a huge difference, the other thing, is

re-invest and re-open a number of minor injury units bah because you

can't choose well, which is what patients are being asked to do if

you don't have a choice. If you can't get appointments. Nigel Farage

a year ago blamed a lot on health tourism in terms of pressures on

Britain's hospitals. Was he right, do you agree? We do have an issue

with health tourism. It costs the UK almost ?3 billion a year. That is

not true. Not the case. Some of that is obviously associated with Wales,

what we would like, last year 12333 hours were lost with ambulances

waiting outside the A departments. Not because of health tourism.

Certainly not. I am not talking about that, that was in three month,

we are talking about A as well. I am telling you that 12333 hours were

lost with hospitals outside, they couldn't get in because of the bed

blogging, because we have closed the cottage hospitals, which are

fundamental to our environment. Elin Jones let us hear your solution for

A hospitals across Wales. The solutions for A lie in the

community, yes, community beds have been closed right throughout Wales

and that is putting an extra pressure on A and acute hospitals,

there is no doubt about that. I think as was said in by one of the

doctors in the film, we have to tackle health and social care

integration, that is where many patients get caught in turf war

between health and social care, who pays, who is responsible for the

care of the elderly, where people are staying on hospital wards for

too long. . So we have to integrate that properly, and if we just tinker

at the margins we will always continue... You are advocating a

huge overhaul, the biggest ever arguably overhaul of the NHS in

Wales. Is now really the time to do that? Now is absolutely the time. We

have outlined already all the pressures in the NHS. If we carry

on, if we carry on the way we are doing, then we will continue to have

the... Explain what will happen... How doors haven't closed over

winter, that is how bad it is, we have a Health Minister thinking that

is a good enough response, because what... Across our border doors have

closed this Wales they have not. We need as we started off by saying, we

need to take some of the big decisions that fashion the future of

the NHS to meet the demands of the 21st century and elderly patients

what we need to do, is to integrate 21st century and elderly patients

health and social care, break down the barriers between those

reorganisation costs. ?10 million seems a cheap ticket. What I would

say is that if we carry on as we are doing, we will carry on having the

problems into the future it is not... Kirsty Williams... We need

another reorganisation of the Health Service like a hole in the head.

What we need, what we need, what we need is a relentless focus on

service delivery for patients, anything that distracts us from that

will let patients and staff down. It is fanciful to suggest a

reorganisation is going to cost 10 million. The last one Plaid Cymru

undertook in admin costs alone it was 21 million. We need to focus on

services. We the need closer working between the NHS and social care,

that is crucial, and that is why, that is why we have... Caroline

that is crucial, and that is why, Jones Before any planning can be

done we need a full scale inquiry. How will that help patients waiting

now? This is going to take time but obviously we need to know what is

wrong before we can fix it. We do not need another reorganisation. We

have had two already and it is not going to be third time lucky for the

NHS. We need to be able to focus on service delivery. Plaid Cymru is

advocating for a massive reorganisation of local government

at the same time which will distract reorganisation of local government

them from delivering core services like social services. It is not

going to work and it is important we get to grips with the NHS structural

reform. Except your party is advocating a directly elected

commissioner. That is reorganisation. Do you back more

elected commissioners? We do because we want to end the situation at the

moment which allows for cronyism to take place, where ministers appoint

members to health boards. Instead we want them to be appointed by the

people and we think that is the right way. On these health boards at

the moment, the people that are appointed, the chairs, the vice

chairs, 75% of those people will have a political affiliation with

the Labour Party. But briefly, Caroline Jones, how many more

elected representatives, how does that help waiting lists? It doesn't.

At the moment, it isn't helping people. What elections bring our

accountability. It brings transparency and accountability.

Let's look at hospital reorganisation and where we are at

right now. Two and a half years ago, Carwyn Jones said that health

services would collapse unless hospitals were reorganised. Where

are you on that and are you honestly, with the mood of the

night's debate, are you honestly happy with progress? We have had a

series of reorganisation is during this assembly term. I have had a

series of difficult decisions put on my desk and I have never shied away

from them. I have made a decision every time I was asked to do.

Undoubtedly there is more to follow. The health service is always in a

process of change. More closures? What we don't need is a massive

upheaval of the organisation and we do not need elected interference in

the decisions that clinicians and people who work in the industry need

to do. So more people who work in the industry need

not been closures. There is to be a moratorium, so that you -- you do

not need a moratorium is that nothing can ever improve. Have you

been ambitious and brave enough in your reforms of the NHS? Health

service your reforms of the NHS? Health

because you have to take the public with youth and the public is often

attached to what they know and you were asking people to make a leap of

faith into something that will be better in the future. I think we

have succeeded in doing that in many parts of Wales. We will have to go

on having a discussion. We know that. If you want the very best

on having a discussion. We know results for people, particularly in

specialist services, sometimes you have to be willing to draw that

expertise together into one place where you can offer the very best to

people all the time, every day. And you asked for an honest discussion

about the challenges facing the health service, and nobody here

should pretend to the public that you can simply leave the

should pretend to the public that service in our spec where nothing

will change because that way is a guarantee, not that things will

improve, but that they will go backwards. That is all very credible

but the problem with that is that most of the reorganisation proposals

that have been put in front of people in our communities have been

based on centralisation away from various hospitals on the basis that

the staff is not there to run many of those services and there is a

recruitment issue in needing to run those services. And herein lies one

of the other pressures within the NHS, and that is the fact that we

have too few doctors, too few nurses in Wales, certainly the lowest

number of doctors in the western EU. More doctors and nurses than ever

before. We need to be able to resource the NHS sufficiently, to

plan the future of the workforce, to train more of our own doctor and

nurses. We need to be able to do that in order to retain hospital

services in communities throughout Wales. We will come onto recruitment

but in terms of hospital reorganisation, you have to make

unpopular decisions as ministers and stick to them. And when the placards

come out, you have to stick by that. And you have to follow through on

your commitment. One of the reorganisations promised by the

government was the building of a new hospital for the south-east of

Wales. We have been promised and promised that hospital as part of a

reorganisation process. But it is yet to be built. When services

change in West Wales, patients were told, we will move your services and

when you get to the hospital there will be new facilities available.

But those facilities were not ready at that time. And that undermines

faith in the change process, when one of the promises that is made, if

they accept the change it is often counterintuitive for people to think

that if they travel further away, the service will be better. If the

government does not follow through on its promises, it makes further

change much more difficult to achieve. It is all very well at

tackling the government and its record, but let's look at your

record in Westminster. Junior doctors are on strike today over the

border. Is that the model that you are offering for Wales? And could

you guarantee that you would not tinker with contracts if you win in

make that we are certainly not going to be offering cuts, closures and

downgrades. But let me deal with the question directly. Let me deal with

the question directly. We have no plans whatsoever to change the

junior doctor contract here in Wales. But what we want to see... Is

it a mistake, what your party is doing in England? What we do want to

see is seven week care in our NHS. At the moment, we do not have that.

How do we achieve that? Extra investment, more doctors and nurses.

We do not have that at the moment. Yes, you are quite right, doctors do

work seven days a week, particularly the emergency services, but what we

do not see often is elective care over those weekend periods. Let me

pin you down here, Darren Millar, on how much you would commit to the NHS

in Wales. In terms of overall percentage of the NHS budget, we are

looking at 45% going on the budget. What would you put? It is not about

percentages, it is about new investment. We know that over the

next few years as a result of record investment, there will be ?800

million extra at least coming to Wales. People talk in percentages a

lot of the time, why is it not about percentages? Because it is about

money and investment. I will not set an arbitrary percentage as to how

much of the gut budget -- how much of the budget will be involved. Why?

Because we do not know what the budget will be. But we do know that

the Conservatives have given a clear commitment that there will be ?800

million more invested. Would it be more or less than the percentage

currently spent? And we will have ?800 million more to invest over and

above what is there at the moment. So if we look at England, you told

us to look at Wales in terms of how Labour run the NHS, look at Wales.

Should we look at England for a model of how you would run the NHS

year? Let's compare England and Wales. If you look at waiting times,

Wales lags behind. If you look at patient outcomes for cancer and

stroke, Wales lags behind. Absolutely untrue. We need to make

sure we level playing field. Look at cancer drugs and you are seven times

less likely to get access to cancer drugs if you are Welsh than if you

were English. Give us your vision, just your vision. To make it clear,

we would invest money, extra money, each and every year at least at the

rate of inflation into the Welsh NHS. That would mean that over the

next assembly, over the next fortnight years, ?800 million more

would go into the NHS. So we should not look at England as an example?

We have different policies here than in England. Caroline Jones, give us

a flavour of what the NHS would look like in the UK. More privatisation?

Absolutely not. But that is what Nigel Farage said. He didn't. I

would not support any party that believed in privatisation. Nine

years ago I suffered from cancer and so I would not support any party.

The other parties like to say that we would privatise but we wouldn't.

Although we have a pretty good example at the moment of issues that

are privatised. We have agency nurses, and the cost of agency

nurses is, we could employ over 200,000 full-time nurses. How much

would you spend on the NHS? It is about managing the budget. Of course

we would spend more. Let's reinvent hospitals to prevent a bed lock in.

I think there would be a major incentive to prevent bed blocking.

Man-hours lost every month by ambulances locked outside. That is

not good use of time. That money would be reinvested. In terms of

looking ahead, would it be more of the same from Labour or are you

offering something very new in this election? We offer a combination of

stability, because we will not have reorganisation, but reform as well.

Reform alongside investment. And reform alongside partnership with

the staff who work in the NHS. The Tory recipe is privatisation and

confrontation. Absolutely rubbish. Our recipe would be partnership with

staff. That is why we do not have strikes in the Welsh NHS. Continuing

investment and reform alongside it. We have to do something differently

in the NHS if we want it to be able to go on doing the things that it

does that are so valuable. That is the recipe we offer, a combination

of making sure that we keep the ship steady as it goes, because that is

really important in difficult times, and also that we do things

differently so we are fit for the future. Thank you all very much for

now. Let's pause there a moment and take

a quick visit to a GP surgery to get a sense of some of the pressures

in primary care. Where are the challenges confronted

here? We have been to is Beech

House Surgery in Denbigh. I'm working increasingly harked here

in Beech House to look after my patience. And I feel that this is

getting increasingly difficult overtime. I think the difficulty is

that if you have 50 patients to see in a day, which can happen here on a

busy day, especially in the middle of winter, it is very difficult to

be able to give the care that you want to to every patient sat in

front of you, because of time pressure. At this practice, it is

very good. You get an appointment very quickly, without a problem. My

sister lives not far from here. If she needs an appointment and she

cannot get an appointment, it might not be for three weeks. So it is

variable. Some of the main difficulties are problems with

recruitment and retention of GPs. In certain parts of North Wales, we

cannot deny that there is a crisis in general practice. The changes

that I would like to see in the NHS in Wales over the next five years is

to put a greater focus on primary care. We all know that we are seeing

90% of patients contracts getting only 80% of the budget -- 8% of the

budget. It is important for patients to get primary care in their

community, close to their homes, but this has to be properly funded in

order to do an excellent job. Dr Fiona Godlee is there. Let's look at

GP recruitment specifically. Elin Jones, one of your manifesto pledges

was 1000 extra doctors. Where will they come from? 1000 extra doctors

over the next ten years because we have too few doctors are head of

population compared to most of the European Union. That is why we need

to recruit more doctors. Perhaps we need to look at financially

incentivising rural areas where it is difficult to recruit doctors. But

where are you getting them from? Fundamentally, we have to trained

more doctors in Wales. There are too few young people able to access

Welsh medical schools at this point. We need to increase places in Welsh

medical schools and make sure that more younger people are able to

train to be doctors in Wales and that means that they will end up

more likely to serve the NHS in Wales rather than leaving Wales to

have to go to get medical education and possibly never returning. We

fundamentally need to start from day one of the next government

increasing the training places for doctors in Wales. And Kirsty

Williams, it is particularly an issue in rural areas. How would your

party persuaded doctors to go and work in rural Wales? We need to look

at incentive schemes but we also need to make several places

attractive places to do medicine. I think we can create innovative

careers were GPs can mix their time between general practice and

hospital medicine, making it an attractive job to do. We also have

to recognise that GPs are a precious resource. It is not unusual for

people to wait three weeks to get a GP appointment in many rural parts.

We have to recognise that they are a precious resource and it takes a

long time to get them working. We need to recognise that GPs are

working as part of the team and that is why we want to see more nurses in

our community and we also want to have direct funding for GPs, to

allow them -- allow them to employ more nurses or pharmacists,

physiotherapists, councillors. One in four Welsh people suffer from a

mental illness and that takes up a lot of time. Often they do not have

services to refer people onto. Actually, we want to create a fund

that will allow surgeries to expand my meaning that GPs see the people

that need to see them. Other health care professionals are able to help

solve people's problems. I wouldn't disagree with anything

that has been said about incentivising people to come to work

in Wales. We, we do have problems, it is not just confined the rural

areas, we have problems in urban area, we have seen in Prestatyn and

Wrexham and North Wales, as was features in the film, there are real

pockets of pressure and frankly the Welsh Government has been burying

its head in the sand too long, it has be a number of years that the

Royal College has be a number of years that the

immediate to train more doctor, there is a crisis merging, that is

upon us and frankly, the Welsh Government hasn't done enough to

address it. Training takes a long time, where would you get more

doctors tomorrow, where would your party get them? We would offer

incentives for people to come to Wales, we would say how wonderful

Wales is, what it has to offer, and we would hope that people would be

encouraged enough... Financial incentives? I don't know about that.

I don't think so. Tell them it is a nice place to do other stuff? Yes,

we have to promote our country. It is beautiful. Would you attract

doctors from abroad? As well as recruitment, we have to look at

retention and at the moment... Would you attract doctors from abroad?

Well, where would they come from? Because we would be depleting other

areas, maybe of these service, that are very much needed in their own

country, having trained in their country and you know, those services

are required there, are we completing, ethical about taking

doctors from other countries? completing, ethical about taking

are the type of thing that we have to look at. You have acknowledged

that recruitment is a huge issue, why do you think so few want to work

in Wales? Let us get the record strange straight, we have more

doctors working in Wales than any other time in our history. That is

have a a very low base. It is not from a low

have a a very low base. It is not more consultants working in

hospitals and the number of GPs we have in the workforce in

hospitals and the number of GPs we year went up again.

hospitals and the number of GPs we level. But you know that the NHS,

OK, if you are challenging that, the NHS Wales workforce would say that

you need to, 30% more GPs just to catch up with England. That is not

the case at all. You asked for a sensible discussion, in Wales we

have 6.5 GPs for every 10,000 of the population, in England they have

6.6. So it is nonsense to say there is a 30% difference. Difference. It

is nothing like it whatsoever. What we have to do, because every year,

there are 3% more appointments with GPs in Wales than the year before,

over a single assembly term, that means you have nearly a fifth

increase in the demand for GP appoints so we have to

increase in the demand for GP but Kirstie got the answer right.

You asked for consensus, Kirstie got the answer right. What we have to do

is diversity -- diversify a primary care team.

is diversity -- diversify a primary A physiotherapist and so on, so what

we have to do, is to broaden the base of people who are able to offer

appointments at primary care, those people are available today, not

being trained so they become available in ten years' time. That

way... In Prestatyn which I think Darren Millar mentioned, we have a

new service opened which does this. Just to be clear, are you saying

that patients, are you saying that patients are doing to the wrong

place? No, what I am saying is that when patients go to the right place,

to primary care, 90% of contacts are in primary care, insped of ex

pegging that the GP will be your first port of call there are others

who we can just as clinically deploy, those people will be under

the oversight of a GP. Why isn't that happen something if you are

saying they are ready, it is not, clearly we saw the pressures on A

earlier. A year ago we had no clinical pharmacists in Wales, today

we have a 50 because we have put money into clusters a. Is more money

for primary care, is that the answer? You are talking about

cutting 300 million. Making sure that the primary care get their fair

share of the totality of the NHS budget is, because the Royal College

of GPs have said clearly the amount of money that, the share of money

going to the primary sector has been reducing in the past few years. To

be clear, on your manifesto would you cut the health budget? No. ?300

million savings. We have said that the additional funding for the NHS

and social care that comes into Wales from the UK Treasury will be

completely ring-fenced for the purposes of the NHS. Where will you

make the savings? Of course there are savings. This Health Minister

had to make savings in the NHS, and any Health Minster will have to do

that. Where does the money come from? Where there is waist in the

NHS and we all hear of it all the time, we know it is there. Where

will it come from? From within the NHS on inefficient practise, better

precurement of... Why have we waited until there is a crisis, whys was

there no forward planning? You were in Government for five years. All of

it will be ring-fenced and put to front line service, that is the

priority that Plaid Cymru has put in its manifesto. Our time is nearly

up. Let us close back where we began. Is there an acknowledgement

we have to be more grown up when it comes to this debate and this

campaign and that being straight with the people is absolutely key

throughout this campaign? If you were to do that, how would you be

straight with the people, and their responsibility to towards the NHS,

Caroline Jones? Their responsibility towards the NHS, I find that the

current Government is very sensitive to any form of criticism. What would

you do? What would I do? I think we need to go back to basics, to have

transparency by asking doctors and nurse what they feel the failures

are and them not being afraid to answer the question, because at the

moment is survey shows that 60% of those that are raising concerns are

bullied and harassed after, so they are in fear of reprisals and can't

speak their mind. Darn your message to patients. We have had enough

broken promises from previous Governments and they have included

junior partners with the Liberal Democrats and Plaid Cymru in the

past. What we need is better resourced NHS which is more

accountable to the people, where patients are more responsible for

their own care and the way they use NHS resources, I think that is

something that can be delivered and we can work with other parties to

deliver that. We have worked with them on mental Health Services, and

I think that shows that we have opportunities to do that in future.

Kirsty Williams. We have to get President Obamary care right. If we

don't get it right we will continue to see those pressures in our

hospital service, so we need better access to GP, we need to ensure that

there are more nurses working in Wales, we have had tremendous

success, the first part of Europe introducing a law to ensure there is

the right number of nurse, we want to have that in our community and we

immediate to address the issue of the disparity between how we treat

fiscal health and mental health. Plaid Cymru is to take the

decisions, that means proper workforce planning for the NHS and

social care workforce but full health and social care integration

so that we break down the barriers and we put the patients back at the

centre of NHS planning. We need a new bargain between the

system and the patient, the system has to be more open to people, to

hear their views, to take their views seriously to regard people as

equal partners in the business of bringing about improvement, and at

the same time patients have responsibilities, a huge amount of

what the Health Service does today is to deal with harms that need

never have happened and that includes type 2 diabetes in many

cases, we all have a responsibility to do more, to look after our own

health, if we want the NHS to be there for us, when things happen to

us, over which we have no control at all.

In our next Election Wales 2016 I'll be travelling Wales to ask

the Leaders of each of the five main parties their vision for Wales.

But in two weeks' time we'll be looking in detail at another big

issue in this election - education and what the parties

have to offer pupils, parents and students.

If you'd like to get in touch ahead of that or you'd like to be

in the audience for our special debate with the Welsh Party leaders