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Wales Online
Wales Online
Politics
Ruth Mosalski

The Welsh Conservatives are promising five 'new' hospitals in their manifesto but it's not quite that straightforward

It's the party's big pitch for votes ahead of May 6 - the Conservative party's manifesto is labelled "a plan for recovery and change".

And yet one of their headline promises is already coming under scrutiny.

The first page of the document boldly promises "five new hospitals".

"Guaranteeing the NHS is there for everyone by building five new hospitals and providing extra funding to the NHS every year, with 3,000 more nurses and 1,200 doctors by 2026".

The pledge is repeated on page three but by page 20 it has become "new and upgraded community hospitals".

After party chairman Glyn Davies seemed to struggle with naming the locations and cost of the hospitals - as well as whether they would be new or upgraded, we asked the party.

When we asked them to clarify if they were new or upgraded, the response from a spokesman was: "We are delighted to announce we will deliver modern facilities for the Welsh NHS with five new and upgraded community hospitals over the next parliament in Flint, Llandrindod Wells, Newtown, Rhyl and West Wales and will make no apologies for cleaning up Labour's mess."

So we asked again.

In response we were then told that two would be new hospitals - those in Flint and Rhyl and two would be upgraded - those in Llandrindod and Newtown. A fifth, in west Wales could be either new or upgraded after proposals over healthcare are reviewed "and a new or upgraded community hospital will be included in those".

The party said it has a budget of £1bn, and told us £64m of that would be for the Flint upgrade. However, no further figures were forthcoming.

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