Welsh secretary David Davies savages Labour-run NHS in the country as ‘shambolic’ after his father-in-law, 72, had to wait nearly 27 HOURS to be admitted to hospital

The Welsh minister has branded the Labour-run NHS ‘absolutely shabby’ after his elderly father-in-law had to wait almost 27 hours before being admitted to a local hospital following a serious fall.

David TC Davies said 72-year-old Joe, a retired farmer, has endured an “embarrassing and disgraceful” series of delays after injuring his back while sliding backwards down a garden staircase at the MP’s home in Monmouth.

The accident left him unable to sit or stand upright, and he was only discovered by the family after dragging himself inside with his hands.

Mr Davies’ wife Aliz immediately called 111, who advised her to contact emergency services. The first 999 call was made at 10.55am on Monday, with an operator promising that medical staff would ‘assess’ him within two hours.

A nurse called shortly before 2pm and concluded that Joe’s spinal injury needed to be assessed in hospital. She said it would take about four hours for an ambulance to arrive.

Instead, the elderly patient heard nothing until 10 p.m., when emergency services called to apologize for the delay and say Joe’s case had been upgraded to “urgent.” However, the ambulance crew did not show up until 4 a.m. on Monday morning.

“This was 17 hours after the first 999 call, during which my father-in-law had suffered significant pain,” Mr Davies said. “He’s an extremely tough guy, and the staff that ended up coming was great, but it was extremely upsetting and, quite frankly, unacceptable.”

Joe’s ordeal didn’t end there. Instead he was taken to Grange Hospital in Cwmbran, where his ambulance had to wait in a queue outside the hospital building for another seven hours.

He was eventually assessed in the vehicle by a doctor who ordered a CT scan. This was only possible if a bed became available and he was not admitted until Tuesday at 1.45 pm.

“It is shameful and outrageous that an elderly man – who could have been seriously injured – had to wait in hospital for more than 24 hours,” Mr Davies said last night.

“Unfortunately, I am not entirely surprised by the ordeal my father-in-law has endured, as this is part of the daily lives of my constituents. You hear similar stories day in and day out. I even know a voter who had a broken hip at the time and was taken to hospital strapped to the back of a board.”

The accident left Joe unable to sit or stand upright, and he was only discovered by the family after dragging himself inside with his hands.

The Welsh Secretary’s comments come days after the Welsh NHS revealed that a record number of 583,000 patients – almost one in five people in the country – are on waiting lists. A total of 27,000 people have been waiting for treatment for more than two years. The equivalent figure for England, which has twenty times the population, is 265.

Elsewhere, the Welsh Ambulance Service was forced to report an ‘extraordinary incident’ nine days ago, following a weekend in which a queue of 16 ambulances was spotted outside Morriston Hospital in Swansea. One who was stuck there for 28 hours.

Last month, the Royal College of Emergency Medicine also revealed that the Welsh Government had manipulated waiting time figures for emergency services to dramatically reduce the number of registered patients waiting more than four hours for treatment. About 20 percent of such cases had been removed from the records by being classified as a “breach waiver.”

Mr Davies said he wanted to emphasize that the situation was ‘not the fault of our first-class healthcare workers, who are working around the clock to keep us safe.’

Instead, he laid the blame on the Welsh government, which controls the Welsh NHS and has been run by Labor for more than two decades.

“Despite increased funding from the UK government, Labor has previously made cuts to the healthcare budget in Wales, which now has the worst waiting lists in the whole of Britain,” he said.

Mark Drakeford’s government, dubbed a ‘blueprint’ for the Labor government by Keir Starmer, is implementing highly controversial plans to increase the size of the country’s parliament and reduce speed limits from 30mph to 30mph .

‘It is outrageous that they can find £130 million of taxpayers’ money to create more politicians in the Welsh Parliament and £33 million to impose the blanket 20mph policy, and yet they are forcing health boards to make huge financial cuts through to feed. This is an absolute shame.

‘It’s a national scandal. On every power the Labor Welsh government is responsible for in Wales – health, education, transport, environment – ​​they are falling drastically short. And this is what awaits the rest of the UK if Keir Starmer comes to power – after all, he constantly barks that the Welsh government’s record is a blueprint for what a British Labor government will bring to the rest of the UK. Britain would roll out.”

A Welsh Government spokesperson said last night: ‘We were sorry to hear about the patient’s experience. We have been clear to Aneurin Bevan Health Board about our expectations for improving the performance of ambulance patient transfers to free up vehicles to support faster responses. All health boards and the Welsh Ambulance Service Trust have developed joint ambulance improvement plans to improve the speed of ambulance response and management of 999 patients in the community.

‘Despite ongoing budget pressures, we are investing in same-day emergency care and additional community beds, as well as integrated solutions with social care services to improve patient flow through hospitals; and address delays in ambulance transfers.”

Jason Killens, Chief Executive of the Welsh Ambulance Service, said: “We are very sorry to hear about this patient’s experience. Poor ambulance response times are a symptom of much wider and complex system-wide problems, including hospital transfer delays, which are not unique to Wales.

‘If crews are stuck in hospital they will not be able to respond to other 999 calls. That is why some patients in the community wait a long time for our help, as Mr Davies’ father-in-law did on this occasion. It’s as frustrating for us as it is for the patients, and it’s not the emergency care we want to provide.”

The Aneurin Bevan University Health Board, which runs The Grange Hospital, said: “We are so sorry to hear that the patient had to wait so long. Like hospitals in Wales and the rest of Britain, we are currently experiencing significant delays in the flow of patients through our hospital systems due to difficulties in discharging patients who no longer require hospital care.”

Mr Davies said his father-in-law has now been released from hospital and is recovering at home.