11/04/2014 BBC Wales Today

Good evening. Cutting NHS funding in Wales may be responsible for longer

waiting times. That's according to a major new report by the Nuffield

Trust and the health foundation, which has compared the health

service across the UK. Also suggests there is no evidence to show the NHS

as a whole is lagging behind. What seems to be a simple question

can sometimes take a long time to answer. Six academics worked for

more than two years are trying to figure out whether Wales, Scotland,

England or Northern Ireland and the best performing health service.

What's clear from this study is that on lots of health targets that

measure time, such as ambulance response times and the amount of

time patients have to wait for common hospital procedures, the NHS

in Wales is struggling to keep up with other countries in the UK. Up

until 2009, waiting times in Wales for things like hip, knee and

coronary artery bypass surgery improved a lot. But since then,

they've deteriorated and lengthened again. Peter Bishop knows what

that's like. He spent more than a year waiting for his hip

replacement. They told me that they'd get me fixed as soon as

possible. I didn't see him again for at least nine months. So why are

Welsh patients waiting so much longer? We can't be certain about

why that happened but one point is very clear - that Wales was the only

one of the four countries which actually cut its expenditure on

health in 2010 for three years. And, actually, one of the things you

would expect in that climate, as money gets tight, is that waiting

times would lengthen. Decision was made the start of this Assembly term

to make sure that we protected the social services side. Over the last

ten years we have succeeded in reducing and reducing the number of

people who are delayed in hospital beds when they don't need to be

there. Those figures are now at an all-time low. But some of the

findings are more encouraging. Rates of preventable deaths are lower here

than in Scotland and Northern Ireland and the North East of

England, which has a similar demographic to Wales. And Welsh

patients are the most satisfied with the way the NHS is run. But they're

the least happy about their experiences of staying in hospital.

But not every aspect of health care was covered in this study and in

other areas, like social care, bed blocking and cancer waits, the Welsh

Government argues it's ahead of the pack. 51-year-old Fiona Bailey from

Cardiff was told last year she had breast cancer. It took less than two

weeks for her to see a specialist. I was diagnosed in October and

everything's just moved so swiftly since then. I haven't had to wait

for any treatment dates. In Llangollen today, the Prime Minister

and the Health Secretary renewed their attacks on Welsh Labour's

health record. A health union has called on them to apologise to staff

and the Welsh health minister says today's study demolishes their

claims. His utterly unfounded assertion has been that somehow in

Wales things are uniquely bad and everything is fine in his own

backyard and hear things are awful. What this report tells you is that

that is absolutely not the case. But opposition parties argue the study

is clearly not a glowing endorsement of Welsh Labour's health record.

They claim it proves patients have to clock up many more hours, days

and months waiting, simply because they live in Wales.

So, attacks on the NHS here dominating the opening day of the

Welsh Conservatives party conference in Llangollen. The Prime Minister

described Offa's Dyke as the line between life and death.

These upholsterers in Holywell are the kind of people the Prime

Minister thinks have the right ambition for Wales. In his address

to the party faithful in Llangollen, ambition was his

favourite word. He used it 18 times. Most of what he said was about the

economy. His main claim was that Wales is not only sharing in the

recovery but leading it. The UK capital for jobs growth is right

here in Wales. That's because we have a serious, long-term economic

plan. And that plan is working. David Cameron tried to balance the

positive with the negative but the criticism, when it came, about the

Welsh Government's stewardship of the NHS was further than he's gone

before. One in seven people in Wales is on an NHS waiting list. We have a

cancer drugs fund in England but not here. And I tell you, when Offa's

Dyke becomes the line between life and death, we are witnessing a

national scandal. Earlier the man who runs the NHS in England, Jeremy

Hunt, came to Wales with a message that the NHS here was sleepwalking

into a Mid Staffs. This was the hospital scandal in England in which

years of neglect and abuse contributed to a number of

unnecessary deaths. You think it's morally wrong what the Welsh

Government is doing? It is morally indefensible to try to sweep poor

care under the carpet. And we have had in England over the last year a

very uncomfortable and difficult transparency revolution. We've said

in our NHS, which we love to bits, where we find things that are going

wrong, we're going to deal with them. Some within the party have

been uneasy about the Conservative strategy as being too negative. That

concern was nowhere to be seen in Llangollen this weekend.

A 19-year-old man who was injured in an explosion in a field at his home

in Pembrokeshire has been arrested. Jordan Smith was airlifted to

hospital after the incident in the village of Wiston yesterday. His

condition is stable. The property has been cordoned off and search.

Police say he's been arrested on suspicion of an explosive related

offence. A banking industry could be based in Wrexham has announced plans

to create 200 jobs. It provides research and information

to banks and other financial institutions and employs 220 people

at the moment. Avox will double its workforce by 2016 to stop police are

continuing to investigate the sudden death of a 15-year-old boy in

Swansea, the 15-year-old was found yesterday morning.

The death of the teenager, who was a pupil at a nearby comprehensive

school, is being treated as unexplained.

In football, Cardiff city have launched disciplinary action against

two members of staff over claims that their team was leaked to

Crystal Palace in advance of last Saturday's pre-0 defeat. The club's

-- numeric pre-0. I've built my life on loyalty and honesty. That's the

values I get from my mum and dad. In football, you need to stick

together. We stick together. We're glued together and this week has

proved that. In Rugby, Cardiff Blues have beaten Edinburgh away by

29-22. Meanwhile, the ospreys also went to night, beating Leinster

25-19. Time for the weather. Not looking

too bad for the weekend. Mostly settled. It will be cloudy on

Saturday and generally sunnier on Sunday. Tonight is largely dry,

turning chilly with some ground frost forming in sheltered rural

spots but clouding over further west by dawn. That's thanks to a cold

front which brings increasing cloud through tomorrow and there is rain

on this, too. Tomorrow, the best of any brightness early on further

south and east. A similar morning across England but that front pushes

through Scotland and Northern Ireland and then the breeze picks

up. Cloud thickens. Some light rain and drizzle reaches Wales and the

North West of England by the afternoon. Highs of ten in the North

West of Scotland, 15 in the south-east of England. Tomorrow

afternoon, that band of rain peters out as it moves the south-east would

across Wales, so not huge amounts of rain tomorrow. A fresh westerly

breeze and highs of 11 Celsius along Cardigan Bay, up to 13 in

Denbighshire. The front continues to clear south-east would into Sunday

morning and a ridge of high pressure builds back in from the Azores so

chilly start on Sunday with a touch of frost possible. More in the way

of sunshine on Sunday. Can't rule out a shower but it will stay fine

and dry for most. Highs of ten to 14. The settled spell continues into

next week with high-pressure dominating on Monday and Tuesday.

Largely dry with more fine weather. Clearer by day and colder by night,

so a continued risk of frost. Still some uncertainty about next week but

you can keep up-to-date on our website.

That's all for today. There will be updates over the weekend from 6:30pm

tomorrow. From all of us here, have a great weekend.