A PRESS release from Preseli Pembrokeshire AM Paul Davies has claimed that in the event the Conservatives are able to form an administration after May’s elections to the Senedd, it will act to return services transferred from Withybush back to the Haverfordwest hospital.

At the same time, Angela Burns, Mr Davies’s fellow shadow front bench spokesperson issued her own release pledging the reopening of Tenby’s Minor Injuries Unit. With elections upon us later this year, a conversation Mr Davies had with local health campaigner David Williams appears to add more flesh to the bones of Mr Davies’s promise to return clinical specialisms to Haverfordwest. On the Save Withybush SCBU page, David Williams recounts a conversation he had with the AM. And the first question alights upon a key point.

Asked whether he has made the statement because the Conservatives haven’t a hope of a being in power after May 16, Mr Davies denies the promise is an empty one. However, as Mr Davies is wellaware, the chances of the Conservatives being in a position to bring such a policy to fruition is mathematically negligible. As a statement of principle, Mr Davies’s words might merit praise as a promise that can be delivered, it is of no consequence at all. And much the same might be said for Ms Burns’s promise to return an MIU to Tenby.

Clinical priorities take second place

Perhaps more seriously, Mr Davies lays himself open to a potential charge of hypocrisy. When asked how he would tackle the clinical priorities expressed by the Wales Deanery – the body responsible for the postgraduate training of doctors and the allocation of junior doctors to hospitals – Mr Davies suggested that clinical expertise would bow to political will. The very sort of coercion alleged by the Conservatives and hospital campaigners against the Labour Government in Cardiff Bay.

Paul Davies is reported to say: “The Welsh Deanery are appointed and funded by Welsh Government, so we will tell them this is what we are going to do so you have to get the people in place to make it happen, as recruitment & training are the deanery responsibilities.” Bearing in mind that one of the primary complaints of the Welsh Conservatives is that the current Welsh Government has failed to listen to clinical concerns, it now appears to be countenancing listening to some clinical concerns but ignoring others to suit its own political agenda.

Drakeford hits back

Criticism of Mr Davies was swift, Mark Drakeford the Welsh Health Minister was quick to draw attention to inconsistencies between what Mr Davies has published and what he and the Secretary of State for Wales have said to the Minister elsewhere. A Welsh Government spokesperson told The Herald: “During a recent meeting with the Minister for Health, Stephen Crabb MP and Paul Davies AM acknowledged that a sustained effort now needs to be made by all stakeholders to change the public narrative around the future of Withybush Hospital.” The spokesperson continued: “These plans are simply not backed up by any clinical evidence whatsoever.

“A review by the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health concluded there is no clinical sense in reversing the decision to remove maternity and paediatric services from Withybush Hospital. It found the new arrangements are safe, sustainable in the long-term, have led to improved outcomes for mothers and babies, there is better compliance with professional standards and more women are being cared for in the Hywel Dda area than previously. “The hospital plays – and will continue to play – an important role in the provision of services for people in Pembrokeshire. It will be important for us all to highlight the many steps being taken to strengthen services at Withybush Hospital, and to help the local community understand Withybush’s future is secure.”

Moving the debate on

That viewpoint is as one with the views of The Health Board itself. Chief Executive of the Health Board Steve Moore has made it abundantly clear in a number of public statements that the Board is not considering returning services transferred to Glangwili elsewhere. In an interview with this newspaper last November, Interim Clinical Lead Iain Robertson-Steel said: “For six months clinicians here have been working towards formulating a viable strategy for Withybush’s service delivery … the decision-making process has been clinically-led.”

Following Mr Davies press release, Health Board Chief Executive Steve Moore said: “As a Health Board we are committed to the future of Withybush Hospital and are working hard to improve and develop services in partnership with the people of Pembrokeshire.” On the particular services referred to by Mr Davies, Mr Moore told The Herald: “I know there has been public concern about changes to some women and children’s services, which is why we asked for an independent review by the Royal Colleges. They were clear in their advice to us that there was no clinical sense in reversing the changes and found evidence of improved outcomes for patients.

“We are however continuing our conversation with patients, staff and the general public to make further improvements to the patient experience of care, such as the transport schemes we have put in place and looking closely at family accommodation as we progress with the Phase Two capital project to improve the environment at Glangwili Hospital.” Even though the Conservatives are most unlikely to put public money where Paul Davies’s mouth is, the AM does not appear to have factored in the capital costs already incurred by the Board and what will be done to replace money spent by the Board in pursuit of clinical policies if they are to be displaced by political ones.

Davies pilloried

Plaid Cymru’s Preseli Pembrokeshire candidate for the Senedd elections was withering in his condemnation of Mr Davies. Herald columnist John Osmond, himself a highly visible and long-term campaigner in support of the Hospital, attacked the loss of services from Withybush as ‘deplorable’ and ‘unacceptable’.

Turning his fire on the Conservative AM, said: “Paul Davies is safe in making all the pledges he likes about returning services to Withybush, blithely confident in the knowledge that the Conservatives will be unable to form a government in Cardiff Bay following the next election. They are miles away from forming a majority administration on their own, and the fact is that no-one with any clout would consider working with them in a coalition. As far as forming a government is concerned the Welsh Tory Party is a busted flush.

“On the NHS Paul Davies and the Tories are complete hypocrites. They claim to be standing up to defend public services, and in particular Withybush hospital, when it is their Westminster Government’s ideologically driven public expenditure cuts that are the prime cause of the predicament the NHS finds itself in. They claim to be ring-fencing the NHS but their spending increases are running behind inflation. “Meanwhile, their swingeing cuts to local government budgets means that social services are in crisis and older people are bed blocking the acute hospital sector. Paul Davies should be ashamed of himself for shouting from the side-lines in west Wales while it is his own Home Counties Tory Party that is hitting the people he claims to represent.”