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Wales NHS: Labour accuses Tories of 'dirty tricks' | |
(about 3 hours later) | |
A "dirty tricks" campaign over the Welsh NHS is being waged by the Conservatives, a Labour AM has claimed. | |
Pontypridd AM Mick Antoniw accused the Tories and the Daily Mail of a "conspiracy" to denigrate Welsh Labour by selective use of statistics. | |
He accused UK Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt of "political interference" over a planned UK-wide health service review. | |
But Monmouth MP David Davies said Labour was trying to block the review which has not yet looked at Wales. | |
The latest political row over the Welsh NHS broke out on Monday following claims by the Daily Mail that the NHS in Wales was in "meltdown". | |
'Tissue of lies' | |
It developed into a war of words between the Welsh and UK health ministers. | |
Welsh Health Minister Mark Drakeford accused the Conservatives of telling a "tissue of lies" about the state of the Welsh NHS, after UK Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt told the House of Commons that patients in Wales were getting a "second-class" service. | |
Mr Drakeford also accused Mr Hunt of intending to "quote selectively" from a planned review of NHS services across the UK by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). | |
The survey has been commissioned to compare the health services of the four UK nations and is scheduled for release in February 2015. | |
Mr Drakeford wrote to Mr Hunt saying the Welsh government might consider commissioning its own report from the OECD instead unless Mr Hunt ended his "attempts to subvert the process". | |
But Mr Hunt said the findings of the OECD should not be withheld from the public. | |
"I believe we owe it to taxpayers who fund the NHS to show we are willing to learn from other parts of the UK as to where our performance can be improved," he wrote in reply to Mr Drakeford. | |
Mr Antoniw told BBC Wales on Wednesday: "This is really just part of a dirty tricks campaign by the Tory party in conjunction with the right wing Daily Mail. | |
"Anyone would think there are queues of people with their luggage on carts heading for England for treatment in the health service there - we know that is strictly not true." | |
He defended Welsh Labour's threat to order its own report from the OECD on the grounds of "political interference" in the process by Mr Hunt. | |
But Monmouth Conservative MP David Davies claimed Labour were trying to block publication of a report which he said would reflect badly on the party. | |
He said the Tories would like to see the OECD report come out "as quickly as possible and preferably ... before the election so we can examine Labour's claim to be the party of the NHS". | |
He added: "Labour made it a political issue with their attacks on the NHS in England but no-one suggested they were undermining doctors and nurses - I think it's outrageous for them to try and deflect blame." | |
On Wednesday, the Daily Mail said patients in Wales were dying waiting for treatment, and claimed nearly 1,400 patients in Wales waited at least a year for an operation, compared to under 600 in England. | |
Meanwhile a nurses' leader has said that political infighting over the NHS in Wales was putting patients and staff at risk. | |
Tina Donnelly, director of the Royal College of Nursing in Wales, said that to have politicians "scaremonger" about the standard of service within the NHS in Wales was "not wanted". |