Image source, Getty Images

Wales does not have a functioning NHS and people do not have faith in it, claims the head of a doctors' union.

Dr Iona Collins, of the British Medical Association in Wales, said people suffering with chest pain "don't even know" if an ambulance will come.

Latest figures show a higher percentage of people are waiting two years or more for treatment in Wales than England.

The Welsh government said it's spending more to help the NHS recover from the pandemic and cut waiting times.

One patient who has given up waiting for a hip replacement will travel to Lithuania for treatment on Monday, paying £10,000.

Nicky Morris from Aberaman, Rhondda Cynon Taf, waited 18 months before she saw a consultant.

She was shocked when she then called her local hospital, the Royal Glamorgan in Llantrisant, for an update and said she was told no orthopaedic operations had been performed there since 2020.

Mrs Morris asked: "'Am I safe to say that in two years' time is when you're going to be catching up?", and said the person she spoke to could not even say that would be the case.

But time is not on Mrs Morris's side, as she has a muscle wasting condition which means delaying the operation could mean she would never be able to walk again.

She will go to Lithuania to get the hip operation done privately, which is costing her £10,000 and has meant her partner has had to take out a loan on his house.

"It's going to take me five years to pay off this hip replacement, and yet for 35 years I've paid National Insurance, I've paid my taxes. I've never been out of work, never needed the NHS more than I do now," she said.

Mrs Morris added: "If I don't go to Lithuania and I wait for the operation, I've got the potential that my underlying condition will now get to the point where I have no muscle to actually walk.

"If I'm no longer able to have surgery, that's it. My life will be over at 52."

'People do not have faith'

Figures for February show more than 37,000 people are waiting more than two years for treatment in Wales, around 5% of those waiting.

That is down from around 60,000 last July, or 8% of the total.

But the figures for England are much lower, currently standing at 0.014%.

Dr Collins said despite the fall in numbers, Mrs Morris's case was "a symptom of failure", and the situation was desperate.

"We do not have a functioning service now. People do not have faith in the service," she said.

"If you have chest pain you don't even know if an ambulance is necessarily going to come. We see really tragic reports in the press where people arrive too late."

Image source, Matthew Horwood

However, Mark Dayan from the health think tank the Nuffield Trust, said there had been some improvement.

"If you look at figures from the last few months, on the one hand there has been some progress in a number of things in waiting times in Wales," he said.

"They've actually improved for urgent care, and at the same time the gap for the average person on the waiting list has shrunk with England.

"However, when you compare Wales to Scotland and England, the absolute amount of time that people are waiting is still considerably longer, particularly at the longest end."

On the different figures for the longer waiting lists, he added: "It's probably true that the health services in England and Scotland have put a particularly aggressive emphasis on cutting off the longer waiters first, and had some success in doing that.

"But it's not indisputably a good thing, because actually there is a really difficult moral choice to make between the person who's been on the list for longest and the person who actually needs care most."

Age Cymru head of policy Heather Ferguson said: "There is much that can be done to reduce the effects of long waiting times such as clinicians providing their patients with advice on waiting well to help prevent conditions deteriorating.

"We are worried that if older people are forced to wait too long for their procedures that their condition will deteriorate, leading to a loss of self-confidence, and a gradual withdrawal from life."

In response to the waiting list issue, a Welsh government spokesperson said: "We count more referrals in our waiting times statistics than England - such as referrals for non-consultant treatment by allied healthcare professionals, diagnostic and therapy waits and audiology waits.

"We are cutting longer waiting times in Wales. Total waits of over two years fell by 47% in February 2023 compared to their peak in March 2022, and the lowest since October 2021."

On Dr Collins's comments, the spokesperson added: "We are proud of our NHS, the first universal health system of its kind.

"We have committed more than £1bn extra this Senedd term to help the NHS recover from the pandemic and cut waiting times.

"We are working with health boards and have set ambitious but realistic targets to tackle the pandemic backlog for planned care, backed by significant extra long-term funding."

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