NHS questions dominate election leaders' programme
Getty ImagesThe state of the NHS in Wales dominated questions from the audience in the first BBC Wales' Your Voice Live: Ask the Leader programme ahead of the Senedd election.
Welsh Conservative Darren Millar said it was a "disgrace" that newly qualified paramedics had been told to look abroad for jobs as there were none in the Welsh NHS.
Welsh Liberal Democrat Jane Dodds said the social care "crisis" of 1,400 people being in hospital when they should not be could be addressed by a 1p income tax rise.
Plaid Cymru's Rhun ap Iorwerth assured the audience that nobody would wait more than two years for treatment under a Plaid government
The three leaders were taking questions from an audience of voters in Haverfordwest, Pembrokeshire, which is in the new west Wales constituency of Ceredigion Penfro.
All three faced questions about the health service, with the audience expressing concerns about access to GPs, hospital re-organisations and waiting lists.
On waiting lists, the latest figures show a record drop with the total number of patients waiting falling for eight months in a row.
However, they remain stubbornly high with 713,048 patient pathways - the steps from referral to treatment - on waiting lists in January, nearly 28,000 fewer than the previous month.
Millar said the NHS was in "crisis" with people "dying needlessly" - he denied that his call for a "national health emergency" was a gimmick.
He said the move would enable the Welsh government to focus resources on ensuring a "surge" in hospital bed numbers.
Millar said it was a "scandal" that newly qualified nurses and doctors could not get jobs, adding it was a "disgrace" that newly-qualified paramedics were being told "to go and work overseas to get their employment".
He argued the problems facing the Welsh NHS were down to Labour policy-makers, at times assisted by Plaid Cymru and Liberal Democrat partners over the years.
"For every pound that's spent per head on the NHS in England and on education in England, Wales receives one pound twenty to spend on our population here, and yet we have worse outcomes for our NHS, worse outcomes for our young people with the education system.
"That's not right. It shows you that it's a policy problem, and it's a problem created by policy makers, the Labour Party, with the support of Plaid Cymru and the Liberal Democrats."
Millar said to fund his party's tax cuts proposal, taking a penny off the basic rate of income tax, the party would need to cut government waste, adding: "We'll cut the unnecessary increase in the number of politicians in Cardiff Bay."
"We will cut the increase in bureaucracy that we've seen in the Welsh government over the past three years," he said.
"We'll cut those mini embassies overseas that the Welsh government doesn't need to be spending money on."
Ap Iorwerth said he wanted nobody to wait "more than more than two years for treatment" on the NHS in Wales.
"There are 5,000 people now waiting more than two years. That's got to go completely.
"We look then at the number of people who are waiting on longer waiting lists.
"We need to bring those down to those pre-pandemic levels, because governments can't keep on blaming the pandemic for the problems within our health services.
"So yes, we bring those down, and we have other targets on primary care as well."
On whether Wales should become an independent country, ap Iorwerth said there would be no independence referendum in a first Plaid term, but he asked the audience: "Do you want to look at whether there's a better way of doing things than the way things are done?"
Ap Iorwerth also promised to review a rule requiring self-catering accommodation not let for 182-days a year to be treated as a second home.
"If it's a little bit too high, government needs to be able to be awake to that," he said.
"And there are properties that Plaid Cymru will exempt. If you've got a farm sort of barn conversion, that shouldn't be a property that is part of that system that should be exempt."
Earlier this week a man who runs four holiday cottages told BBC Wales he would be "forced into bankruptcy" if he ever retired because of the rules.
Jane Dodds is the Welsh Liberal Democrat leader and her party's sole MS in the last Welsh Parliament.
She told the audience that she hoped she would be joined by other Lib Dems after 7 May and that she would no longer be "Billy No Mates".
On health, Dodds said there were 1,400 people in hospitals "who shouldn't be there".
"They are waiting literally to go home, and they can't because they can't get an assessment in social care," she said.
Dodds said the Lib Dems would "keep people out of hospital if we had well funded social care, and we would get them out of hospital".
She said that could be addressed with a 1p rise in income tax if that was needed.
Improved social care would help ambulances, because they are being "challenged in moving people through into hospitals because there are no beds. It would help corridor care".
She added that any party that tells you they can cut income tax and maintain public services "are lying, because they can't".
This was the first of two Your Voice Live programmes with party leaders ahead of the Senedd election on 7 May.
The second one, with the leaders of Welsh Labour, Reform UK and the Wales Green Party will be broadcast on 15 April from Llandudno.
