Last year David Cameron dubbed Offa’s Dyke “the line between life and death”, and barely a week goes by at Westminster without the Conservatives kicking the Welsh NHS. Health is a subject on which voters have intense feelings, and Labour enjoys a strong UK lead in the pre-election polls on the subject. So ministers from Mr Cameron down take every opportunity to highlight any health service failings in the one part of the country where the NHS is run by Ed Miliband’s party. Wednesday was only an exception to this rule because the Commons is in recess. If MPs had been at Westminster there is little doubt that the January accident and emergency figures for Wales – showing a slight improvement in the proportion seen within four hours but record numbers spending more than 12 hours waiting to be seen – would have been at the heart of the party battle.
Health service monitoring and accountability are essential. The NHS is a wholly legitimate object of scrutiny, at election time or any other. And there are real grounds for concern, highlighted recently by the Wales Audit Office about some hospital waiting times in Wales. But, as Wednesday’s figures also show, the statistics can tell a nuanced story. They need to be interpreted with care. As the election nears, there is a danger that politicians will soon cross the line that divides holding services to account from irresponsible scaremongering. Some would say the line has been crossed already.
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