The leader of Reform UK in Wales said the country should have just “two or three” health boards, as parties clashed over the future of the country’s NHS. Speaking on BBC’s Your Voice Live on Tuesday, April 28, Dan Thomas criticised the NHS organisation and compared Wales to Manchester.
The live debate show aired just nine days before the Senedd election on May 7 and featured the leaders of all the main parties. The NHS was a big issue in the debate.
Mr Thomas said: “There are seven health boards, trusts, across Wales and that’s too many. There are too many expensive layers of management so we need to reform the top management…Manchester has the same population as Wales and it has one health board. Wales has got seven.”
Host Bethan Rhys Roberts raised: “The big problem is in Betsi Cadwaladr, and everyone says it’s too big. And you’d make it bigger then? [You want fewer health boards?]”
In response to her asking “how many” health boards Wales should have, Mr Thomas told the live audience: “The geography in Wales is very different to Manchester, I accept that. I think one might be too few. But actually two or three.
“We would have to work with the health chiefs to talk about the organisation.” For our free daily briefing on the biggest issues facing the nation sign up to the Wales Matters newsletter here.
Mr Thomas’s comments come just two weeks after he told WalesOnline’s leaders’ debate that Wales didn’t need seven health boards, but did not commit to a number.
When directly asked by WalesOnline’s political editor Ruth Mosalski if that meant Reform would cut some he said: “We could merge”. You can watch our leaders’ debate, published on April 8, here.
His comments on the BBC’s Your Voice Live on Tuesday followed a wider discussion about the NHS, after an audience member asked how each party would save and sustain it.
One audience member spoke about how her husband had spent 10 hours in A&E.
Plaid Cymru’s Rhun ap Iorwerth criticised Reform’s position, questioning the party’s commitment to the NHS and its funding model.
“It speaks volumes, doesn’t it, that the NHS isn’t among the top five priorities of Reform,” he said. “I guess it reflects the fact that they don’t have a plan for the NHS. Their [UK] leader Nigel Farage has made it clear that he doesn’t believe in an NHS funded out of general taxation.
“Thomas’ boss says that he wants to see an insurance based system and that’s the future of the NHS…”
Welsh Labour leader Eluned Morgan was challenged on her party’s failure to meet waiting time targets. She said she was “not ashamed of the fact that we set stretching targets.
“We could have set targets that are easy to meet. But I think it’s important to test the system.”
The Greens’ Welsh leader Anthony Slaughter said people were going to A&E who didn’t need to, “but it’s the only option they’ve got”.
That was “blocking the system”, he said.
Welsh Tory leader Darren Millar claimed more community hospitals were needed.
He said: “A third of the beds have been closed over the past 20-odd years. It’s no wonder there’s a beds crisis in the NHS.”
Welsh Lib Dems leader Jane Dodds said she wouldn’t let the NHS “go into Reform UK’s hands because they would not save the NHS”.
More money was needed for social care she added, “because that helps the front and the back door of our hospitals”.
The debate also heard about parties potentially working together to govern in the absence of a majority for one. All the other parties ruled out a deal with Reform but they would not reject the idea of working with each other.
Immigration also came up during the debate and one audience member made an impassioned plea as she talked about the diversity that existed within her family.
She said she was a quarter-Irish, her husband was half-English and she had two daughters-in-law originating from Spain and Albania.
“We are all immigrants,” she said. “Can we not all live together?”
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