Feisty exchanges over NHS as party leaders go head-to-head in live debate
ITV Cymru WalesThere were feisty exchanges over the health service between the leaders of the six main political parties in Wales as they went head to head on live TV for the first time.
In ITV Wales' live debate at the Senedd, Labour's Eluned Morgan said the NHS worked for the vast majority of people but admitted "more needs to be done".
Plaid Cymru's leader Rhun ap Iorwerth said no one believed Labour any more on the NHS, but Reform's Dan Thomas said Plaid and Labour were in a "pretend punch and judy show"
Conservative Darren Millar said the NHS was in "a crisis", Liberal Democrat Jane Dodds called for more social care money, while the Greens' Anthony Slaughter said Westminster should provide more cash.
What to do about Wales' under pressure NHS has been one of the big themes of this election and the topic featured prominently as all six party leaders faced each other on live television for the first time ahead of polling day on 7 May.
Welsh Labour has been facing an uphill battle to bring down waiting lists in the lead-up to this campaign. The latest figures showed 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.
The Labour leader in Wales and First Minister Eluned Morgan pointed out that more than 50% of the Welsh government's total budget of just over £27bn was spent on the health service.
Morgan, who has also served as the minister in charge of health, said she was "unapologetic" about that spend.
She defended her position by saying that every month there were 2.75m NHS appointments in Wales out of a population of 3 million people.
She said GPs saw "the equivalent of 1.6m people" every month.
"This is a huge amount of work. It is working for the vast majority of people, but I recognise that more needs to be done, and that's why we will be building new hospitals. £4bn on new hospitals, one in Cardiff, transformation of the one in Wrexham and one in west Wales".
Plaid Cymru's leader Rhun ap Iorwerth criticised her record, saying: "Nobody believes Labour anymore on health and Eluned Morgan has of course been a central character in the demise of the NHS in Wales.
"We have got to find a way to put it on a sustainable footing and that's what Plaid Cymru's policies are promising".
He said a government led by him would give the NHS an extra £100m in the first year.
Ap Iorwerth said that Reform UK leader Nigel Farage wanted a health care system that would be "insured based", saying this would be privatising the NHS.
This accusation was rejected by Reform's leader in Wales, Dan Thomas, who said: "Now our party leader in the UK may, may have said stuff in the past that has been taken out of context. I am clarifying that in Wales, the NHS will remain free, and so will prescriptions be free."
Thomas also said Labour and Plaid were in a "pretend Punch and Judy show which will be over after May".
He added: "These two have been working in government in the past and they'll try and do so after the election. So you can't trust that."
The Welsh Conservative leader Darren Millar said the NHS was in "a crisis situation" which could only be resolved by what he called a "health emergency" being declared by the Welsh government:
"The NHS in Wales is in a crisis situation. There are not enough beds. We would surge those beds so that people don't have to be cared for in corridors and cupboards. According to the Royal College of Emergency Medicine, over one thousand people last year alone died because of corridor care, because they were waiting in excess of 12 hours in our emergency department. So we need to fix that, and the only way to do it is by having a laser focus on it and pulling that ripcord to declare a health emergency."
A key policy from the Welsh Liberal Democrats is the possibility of a 1p rise in income tax to create extra funding for social care to keep people out of hospital, a point underlined by their leader Jane Dodds, who said: "Social care and health care go together, and if you can keep people out of hospitals, and if you can get them out of hospitals quickly, then actually that's going to help our health service.
"We're being really upfront and honest with people. We're not about cutting taxes because we think we need to protect our public services, we need extra money in our budget, and if we can't get it any other way, we will raise our taxes by a penny."
For the Wales Green Party, Anthony Slaughter admitted that they hadn't been clear on funding for the NHS, saying the party's manifesto "isn't a budget document. It's our priorities in our direction of travel".
He said putting up a spending plan for every government department for next four years was "a fool's errand".
Slaughter said he'd call on the UK government to provide extra cash for the NHS, adding: "Wales has been short changed for so long it must get the money it's owed."
The BBC Wales Leaders' debate is on 28 April.
Voters across Wales will go to the polls on Thursday 7 May to elect 96 MSs from 16 constituencies.
