The Labour-controlled Welsh government on Tuesday launched a scathing attack on British ministers for what it regards as a cynical campaign to ruin the reputation of the NHS in Wales in order to win votes.
It has also written to all NHS workers in Wales warning that the criticism of the service by the Tories and elements of the London-based media will intensify in the runup to the general election.
For many months, any perceived failings within the NHS in Wales have been seized on by David Cameron to make the case that the health service would not be safe under Ed Miliband if Labour won power.
In the House of Commons again on Tuesday the health secretary, Jeremy Hunt, branded the NHS in Wales “second class” and Tory MPs claimed English hospitals were being put under pressure because Welsh patients were skipping across the border to use them.
Conservatives criticised the Welsh government for “blocking” a visit by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) from carrying out a big inquiry into the state of the NHS in Wales.
In an interview with the Guardian, the Welsh health secretary Mark Drakeford said the NHS in Wales would not become a victim to “Tory bully-boy attacks” and added: “We will set the record straight point by point. Nobody should go away with the idea that we are some kind of free hit.” He said the Conservative party’s “war on Wales” was “unremitting”. “It has been running for months. It’s absolutely nakedly political.”
Drakeford said unfounded criticism by the British government and the media frightened “vulnerable patients” and their families as well as “severely damaging” the morale of NHS workers.
The minister also expressed “astonishment” at a description of patients who travel from Wales to England for treatment as “refugees” by the Tory Welsh MP David Davies. Drakeford said the Welsh government would not dream of describing English patients who visited Welsh hospitals in such terms.
“The notion that Welsh patients are not welcome in English hospitals is offensive.”
Drakeford on Tuesday wrote to Hunt, accusing him of targeting the NHS in Wales for political purposes. He wrote: “The NHS in Wales will not be the victim of any Conservative party ploy to drag its reputation through the mud for entirely partisan political purposes. At a time when the four home nations of the UK need to be working closely together to address the threat of Ebola, your willingness to put the interests of your party above the public is especially reprehensible.”
Drakeford also claimed Hunt is trying to make political capital out of the cancelled OECD visit. The Welsh government says it decided not to allow the organisation access because it was worried that the Tories would quote selectively from the report during the election campaign before it was published.
In his letter to NHS staff in Wales, Drakeford warned further attacks were inevitable. “You will be aware of the political and media attacks on the Welsh NHS this week, especially those which come outside of Wales – these will intensify as we move closer to next year’s general election.”
In recent months and years, the Welsh NHS has been criticised in a series of reports that have highlighted a string of problems in waiting list times and serious mistakes in patient care. The police are also investigating allegations of criminality in some hospitals.
Carwyn Jones, the Welsh first minister, accepted on Tuesday there were problems. “We don’t pretend the health service in Wales is perfect,” he said. “We are committed to dealing with those issues. What we will not do is play politics with people’s health.”
During first minister’s questions, Jones was asked why waiting times for some diagnostic tests were longer in Wales than in England. The leader of Plaid Cymru, Leanne Wood, said 1% of people in England waited more than six weeks for an MRI scan – against 40% of people in Wales. Jones said demand was increasing, partly because Wales had a higher proportion of older people and a bigger share of people who were in poor health.
In London, Labour shadow ministers claimed the “smears” were intended to distract from the “chaos” the Tories had created in the NHS in England.
Owen Smith MP, the shadow Welsh secretary, said: “The prime minister set the scurrilous tone for their campaign when he described Offa’s Dyke as ‘the line between life and death’.”
Labour said a central Tory claim – that Welsh people were fleeing across the border for treatment – was simply wrong. It claimed the number of Welsh people using the NHS had fallen since 2010, while the number of English patients using the NHS in Wales was rising.
The Welsh government is also angry at a series of allegations made by the Daily Mail about its health record. The tabloid has claimed the NHS in Wales is in a state of “meltdown” and has argued that what is happening in Wales shows that the NHS is not safe in “Red Ed’s hands”. It has issued a point-by-point rebuttal.
