19/01/2016 BBC Wales Today

Thank you. That's all from the BBC's News at Six. Goodbye from me.

Welcome to Wales Today. Our top stories:

Every hospital emergency department is "on the edge" and too many

The warning from the head of the Royal College

Every emergency department is on the edge.

We are ever so close to any patient becoming really poorly

within our department and that could have a knock on effect

We're in Port Talbot tonight as steelworkers gather to discuss

where next for the industry in Wales.

The letter to David Bowie written by a Cardiff doctor who thanked him

for helping him talk to people about death.

And 37 players are named in the Six Nations squad.

Scarlets scrum-half Aled Davies the only uncapped player.

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

many patients spend too long, some more than 24 hours, in A

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

Latest statistics show some improvement in A waiting times

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,

that is one empty bed. It is kept free in case of a life-threatening

emergency. Last week we saw a lot of ice and patients came in with falls

and fractures. It is a difficult time for the elderly who do tend to

get more infections at this time of year. The Department on the

hospitals are more busy Vostok to ease the logjam, staff from around

the hospital have come to discuss how many beds can be freed up. Even

in a hospital of this size if they can find to stay handful of bed this

morning it can mean the difference between chaos and calm in A They

say the effort is led to fewer ambulances queueing outside.

According to one of Wales is the big emergency doctors who works on the

other side of the country Wrexham, he shortage of hospital beds and

emergency doctors means to many patients in Wales spent too long in

emergency units. None of the emergency department in Wales has

the required number of consultants that we think is a minimum from the

Royal College. In Wrexham, we are for consultants short. We had six

compared to the minimum number of ten. Every emergency department is

on the edge. We are ever so close to any patients becoming really put

elite within our department and that could have a knock-on effect in

having disastrous outcomes. It is a concern that hasn't gone unnoticed

in Cardiff Bay. Whether Minister make a statement on claims by the

head of the royal college of emergency medicine in Wales that no

casual 2-mac department in Wales has had enough consultants to meet the

minimum staffing levels. There is a UK wide shortage. The First Minister

explained earlier this afternoon, the number of A consultants in

Wales has increased by more than 50% over the most recent five-year

period and increased in everyone of those five years.

The latest figures showed the proportion of patients who had to

wait more than 12 hours in urgent care unit has gone down since last

winter. Despite the milder weather there was no improvement on the four

hour target. Arguably, the pressures are being felt mostly at Morriston

Hospital in Swansea with just 58% of patients spending less than four

hours in this department. Much worse than last December. The minor

injuries unit in Singleton and Neath Port Talbot and the A service they

have in London they take the less serious cases surveys don't come

here. When you look at our patience here, a higher percentage of them

are complicated patients. A typical emergency department might be 70%

minor injuries, 30% major and we are almost the other way. The health

board said it is taking steps to ease as of 2-mac logjams. -- A

logjams. We've measured the length of stay in the over 80s as Singleton

and it has dropped from 20 days to seven days. That is fantastic news.

Any better becomes available will be filled straightaway. What is clear

is that the pressure is on here and in emergency units across the

country. With the temperatures dropping, it could get worse.

Owain, winter's been much milder than last year's yet the performance

Milder may but it is quite chilly here tonight. Temperatures dipping

below freezing. Generally, you are right, it has been milder than

previous years. That usually fewer accidents. When the frosted arrive

just last Friday 461 patients came through the doors, that is about 100

more than usual. When the lizard called snap that does have an

effect. -- when there is a cold snap up through has been prevalent. The

type of flu has been different. It has been affecting younger people.

Demand has begun to surge since the New Year, the last government says

Winter plans are coping, are bearing up. When we talk about pressures on

A, we talk about the people arriving, how long they wait. But

equally important is how quickly the health service can get people out of

the hospitals and free up beds. For that to work you need care in

hospital to work with care outside hospital. If they can crack the nut,

until that happened A's will always be busy.

A woman found dead in Usk last week died from

"ligature pressure to the neck", an inquest has heard.

The body of Georgina Symonds was found in a workshop

Local property developer Peter Morgan is charged

with her murder and has been remanded in custody.

Norovirus has been confirmed on three wards at

Detectives have renewed appeals over the mysterious death of a Welsh

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

in January 1976, after leaving a note for his parents saying

he was going to help a friend with homework.

He was found in Euston Road in London the following morning

A mass meeting of steel workers is taking place in Port Talbot

tonight following yesterday's announcement of 1,000 job losses

at Tata Steel across the UK, the majority of them in South Wales.

Our business correspondent Brian Meechan is there.

What is happening there? You can see behind me the very clear

message from the community Steelworkers union must save our

steel. What they have done is bring together people from across these

sites, particularly in Port Talbot, the shop stewards, to talk about

what happens next ultimately we the trade union leadership. I am here

with Martin Waters, one of the trade unions involved. What was the mood

like? It is very emotional, to be honest. As you can understand people

have mortgages and they don't know where these jobs are going from. It

is emotional moment. Some of the questions you will be asked is what

can actually be done? Yes. Members have broken all records and we

can't... What else can we do? This is out of our hands and it is the

dumping of the Chinese steel. Other than that, we're breaking all

records of the plant and we can't see how we can improve much more.

You frustrated with the politicians or the company or weight you see the

blame lie in? To be fair to Tata they have come in and built a new

furnace and everything. They back the workforce here. We see that it

is the politicians. It is taking a long time to.

Thank you. There will be more discussion on that, what has been

called the level playing field people want to see here when it

looks as China and the rest of Europe.

The Welsh Government will ask the Chancellor George Osborne

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

It comes as the fallout continues over the loss of 750

There were further clashes in the House of Commons over

the level of protection given to the industry and more details

Here's our political editor, Nick Servini.

The morning after one of the bleakest days for Port Talbot

Nothing can change yesterday's events.

What has been occupying minds today is the action

needed to prevent it happening again.

In the meantime, the accusations at Westminster continued

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

Can he at least appreciate how angry families

of steelworkers in South Wales are this morning knowing that

when the bankers bonuses were threatened he

immediately shot across to Brussels with an army of lawyers

He will jump into a helicopter for a Tory fundraiser but it has

taken him four months to lift a finger to save steelworkers jobs.

We want to successful financial services industry

because hundreds of thousands of people

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

They also gave more details of the task force

meeting in Cardiff tomorrow, along the lines of one setup

after major losses were announced at the

Murco oil refinery in Pembrokeshire in 2014.

Nevertheless, at the Assembly, as in the Commons, there

were still questions for the government about why more

First Minister, problems in the steel industry have been

Redcar and Scunthorpe were perhaps warning signals

to us that our steelworkers would be next.

Why did the minister wait until the job losses had been

announced before writing to the Chancellor of the Exchequer

to pursue the issue of an enterprise zone?

I have to say to you we were not aware of what the scale

of the announcement would be until the end

of last week when we had a conversation with Tata.

She is right to say we knew there were

challenges for the steel industry but in terms of the scale of the job

losses, we weren't aware of that until the end of last week.

The job losses have thrown 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 will be far more divisive is to try and create the conditions

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

The question will be, can they set aside their

differences for the good of the industry?

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

I agree with you that it could be done faster but actually a lot

of it, from the UK perspective, is because our own government is not

being fastidious in applying and pursuing these things as fast

There are other countries in Europe doing it much

It was described today as part of Wales's heritage,

all efforts will now be made for the Port Talbot steelworks

to become part of Wales's future as well.

Let's talk to our economics correspondent, Sara Dickins.

Let's pick up on what we keep on hearing about this unfair playing

field that Steelworkers face in trying to save their industry. There

are three areas where they feel the unions and the management feel, they

are not on a level playing field. They started business rates. This is

straight in the UK at ten times what steel producers in Europe stand to

get. Why is that? When we value a property in the UK for industrial

purposes we look at them as Sheena the as well, the value of that. Tata

plays ?26 million a year for business rates for Llanwern and Port

Talbot. If the machine element is taken as that would save them 8

million. Electricity prices. We are paying twice as much as in Europe.

That is because a large proportion of the weight of the carbon

emissions policy, have been paid by the big energy users. They want that

changed. There has been some action but the many is not in the bank.

Finally, didn't feel the governments are doing enough to help them win

projects, big projects like the steel for Hinkley point. Thank you

very much. Much more to come

before seven o'clock. 37 players are named

in the Six Nations squad. Scarlets scrum-half Aled Davies

the only uncapped player. And there is change on the way

but tonight will be the coldest night of the winter

so far for some of us. A doctor specialising in end-of-life

care has written a letter to David Bowie thanking him

for helping him talk Dr Mark Taubert, who's a palliative

care consultant at Velindre Hospital in Cardiff, says it prompted

a "weighty" discussion His letter, published

on the British Medical Journal's website was then re-Tweeted

by Bowie's son, Duncan Jones. David Bowie's shock death last week

from cancer coincided with the release of his last album,

Black Star, currently number one in the charts on both

sides of the Atlantic. Recorded knowing his demise

was imminent, the themes of death, dying and looking back on one's life

loom large in his last While we shouldn't limit

ourselves to those people For palliative specialists,

Dr Mark Taubert, a lifelong Bowie fan, his death enabled

him to spark up conversations about the topic

with his students, and more It flowed into some

of the conversations I had In fact I think I've discussed it

with about seven or eight patients It has a very strong

link and I felt it I felt moved to write

a letter or a blog to him Thank you for allowing people

to speak more easily about dying. At the beginning of this week I had

a discussion with a hospital patient We discussed your

death and your music and it got us talking about numerous

weighty subjects that are not always straightforward to discuss with

someone facing their own demise. The blog written on the site

of the British Medical Journal It was even re-tweeted

by David Bowie's family. It went on Twitter and then

Marie Curie re-tweeted it and it David Bowie's son, Duncan,

must have seen it and For one of Mark's patients,

discussing David Bowie's life, death and music helped to

have a very difficult conversation. We got talking about

what our favourite songs were and what we

associated them with. She talked about some

of his life and then she talked about her own life and her own death

and how she envisaged it. David Bowie in the way

became our conduit for that. Many people who I talk to as part

of my job think death predominately happens in hospitals,

in very clinical settings. A lot of people would wish

they could be at home and it is often

about who is with you as well. If this can get

the conversation about good death and dying further forward

than it has in the past, this has been taboo subject

in the past, if it can do that then I have achieved a small

bit of something. Fire crews in North Wales

will be working alongside the Welsh Ambulance Service to offer

emergency medical assistance The pilot scheme sees firefighters

trained in resuscitation techniques being sent to provide help in areas

where they are likely to arrive The Fire Service says this builds

on work it already does. We certainly deal with making

sure that we get medical intervention and support in place

as soon as possible at fires It is going to be slightly different

for our crews who are actually responding because they are

responding, instead of as a crew of five, it will be a crew of two

and they're not turning up So it's new for us but it's

an extension of our skills A big day for rugby fans.

Here's Tomos with tonight's sport. With the start of the Six Nations

just a fortnight and a half away, the Wales coach Warren Gatland has

named 37 players in his squad. Cardiff Blues wing, Tom James,

has been re-called six years Aled Davies from the Scarlets

is the only uncapped Wales start their campaign

against last year's winners, The coaching team back

to announce a 37 man squad, slightly larger than usual due

to a number of injured But the likes of captain

Sam Warburton and Scarlets full-back, Liam Williams,

are on their way back to fitness as another Six Nations

campaign gets underway. I think we're in a good

place at the moment. We've got some players who have

come back from injury, we've still got 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 As well as the comfort

of consistency It has been six years

since the Blues wing I've been pretty impressed with Tom

over the Christmas period. It was disappointing to lose him

in the Rugby World Cup. He was selected for our

regional squad and I think he adds a bit

of an by factor and I think in particular, against the Scarlets,

he created opportunities Among the forwards,

Josh Turnbull makes a return Lock, Alun Wyn Jones,

after re-signing his national dual contract with Ospreys,

features in a powerful contingent of forwards with four

British Lions in the back row. Along with the older heads,

Gatland has chosen one Aled Davies picked in light

of the injured Rhys Webb It is going to be

a pretty steep learning curve for him in the first few weeks

in terms of getting up to speed with what we are doing and learning

structures and patterns. He's been close to the squad

in the past and it is a great Also in the backs, Rhys Priestland

is included despite the initial announcement that he was to step

back from international rugby. Jonathan Davies and Hallam Amos make

a welcome return from injury. On a beautiful day here

at the Vale Hotel, the Six Nations They will be hoping for a swift

return to key injured players as they aim for a perfect

start of the 2016 campaign with a win against the holders,

Ireland in Dublin on the 7th of Let's talk to a man who knows

all about winning Grand Slams Very good evening to you. Some

players picked on form but this was all about continuity for Warren

Gatland. It is a settled team it is tried and tested. If you look at the

team, the squad, it is a very young squad. Most of them and in their

20s. Edward Jenkins and Paul James will add to the average age

increase! It is a squad they know what they will get out of. How about

Aled Davies. What will he expect when he joins with the Wales squad?

He is going to be on the laundry committee because everybody gets a

job in the Wales squad and the laundry has two either worst! You

have to get it washed. He will expect an intensity he is not used

to. Playing with and training with the best players in Wales. He'll

also expect everything done for him. It is an unbelievable setup, very

professional and he will not train as hard as he will be the Welsh

team. What about the tournament? How do you rate Wales's chancers? Good.

Wales and Ireland will go in as favourites. Rightly so. They have

got the confidence and the settled squad is. They are teams you know

what you will get out of stop you have to be careful of France and

England, dark horses with new philosophies, new coaches, new

players. Wales are in a very good position. We will talk again over

the next few weeks. More from Tom on Radio Wales spores from seven

tonight. Wales have confirmed two friendlies

for March both against sides that They'll play Northern Ireland

at the Cardiff City Stadium on Thursday March the 24th,

before then travelling to Kiev Swansea City's new head coach,

Francesco Guidolin, has met with staff at the club

after watching his new side beat Guidolin was watching

from the stands but he'll be in the dugout for the game

against Everton on Sunday. Ashley Williams go the only goal

of the game. There were a few nervy moments

and the Italian was certainly The Road Cycling season

got underway overnight with the Tour Down

Under in Adelaide. Welsh cyclists, Geraint Thomas

and Luke Rowe finished the day safely after leading out

Team Sky sprinter Ben Swift. The first stage was won

by Australian, Caleb Ewan. Temperatures in the

upper 20s Down Under. No chance of that here,

Derek has our weather forecast. Turning milder with some rain

but at the moment the weather is quiet and settled

thanks to high pressure. South Wales enjoyed the best

of the blue sky and sunshine today. This picture taken by

Jacky Williams on Garth Mountain. The sky is clear with

a widespread frost. Cloud in the north

will tend to clear. A few mist and freezing fog

patches forming as well, And for some of us tonight

will be the coldest night Temperatures in parts of Powys

and Monmouthshire dropping as low So here's the picture

for eight in the morning. A few mist and freezing fog patches

as well so watch out for those Otherwise a fine, clear

and crisp start to the day. Most of the freezing fog will lift

but one or two spots may stay Temperatures in the Heads

of the Valleys only rising to one Slightly less cold on the coast

with a light to moderate breeze. Tomorrow night dry with

another widespread frost. Overnight cloud will increase

with a little rain in the west later Temperatures falling as low

as minus three but above freezing On Thursday the coldest air

will be over the North Sea. This milder air over

Ireland is heading our way. Followed by dry and brighter

weather in the afternoon. Into the weekend, Saturday

the best day. So the cold spell coming to an end

later this week but most of Wales frosty tonight with a few freezing

fog patches and sunshine tomorrow. It is coming up to seven o'clock,

the headlines. Leading doctor has told this programme that all

hospital emergency departments in Wales are on the edge because of

staffing problems and too many patients spending too long in A

The Welsh Government says plans to cope with winter pressures are

working. Tonight at the headlines, a meeting of Steelworkers is taking

place now import Alberts following yesterday's announcement of a

thousand job losses across the UK. It asks for swim meet for the first

time tomorrow and we will have the latest in tomorrow's programme. -- a

task force. That's Wales Today, thank

you for watching. From all of us on the

programme, good evening.