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Under the headline "Labour's NHS shame exposed: Mail investigation reveals meltdown in Labour-run Welsh NHS with police probing allegations of horrifying neglect", the Daily Mail today claims to have exposed serious deficiencies in the Welsh NHS.

The paper's investigation, which will run all week, is the right-leaning tabloid's attempt to undermine Labour's General Election bid by drawing damning conclusions from its handling of the health service in Wales.

But is everything quite as it seems from the Daily Mail's piece? Not if you believe this remarkably strident and detailed response from the Welsh Government...

Daily Mail claim: “Around half of Welsh cancer sufferers must wait six weeks or more for many scans and tests yet across the border in England ... The comparable figure is less than 6%.”

"This is not true. Everyone referred by their GP via the urgent suspected cancer route is put on a 62-day pathway, during which all investigations (tests) are carried out. This is the same in Wales and in England.

"The target in Wales is for 95% of patients newly diagnosed with cancer via the urgent suspected cancer route to start definitive treatment within 62 days from GP referral. In the first quarter of 2014-15 (April to June) 87.4% of patients were seen within that time.

"The target in England is for 85% of patients newly diagnosed with cancer via the urgent suspected cancer route to start definitive treatment within 62 days. In the first quarter of 2014-15 (the latest figures available), 84.1% of patients were seen within this target.

"There is also a 31-day cancer pathway in England and Wales."

"For patients newly diagnosed with cancer not via the urgent route the target in Wales is that 98% should start definitive treatment within the target time of 31 days. In the first quarter of 2014-15 (April to June) 98.1% of patients were treated within 31 days.

"In England, figures for the first quarter of 2014-15 (the latest figures available) show 97.8% of people treated began first definitive treatment within 31 days of receiving their diagnosis.

Daily Mail claim: “Little wonder 15,000 cancer patients decide to travel to England for cancer treatment denied to them at home.”

"This is not true. In Wales, 16,000 patients are treated for cancer in total every year – 15,000 of them would not be sent to England for treatment.

"Patients are not routinely denied cancer treatments available on the NHS. Welsh patients routinely receive cancer treatment and other forms of care at English hospitals as, in some parts of Wales such as Powys; these are their local hospital providers.

"Research published in the British Journal of Cancer in February this year found Wales has a better take up of cancer drugs which have been deemed cost-effective by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence.

"In September, Wales became the first country in the UK to make the MS drug Sativex available for use on the NHS. The new pancreatic cancer drug Abraxane is also available to all eligible patients in Wales on the NHS – the only part of the UK.

"Some Welsh patients will receive specialist services at English hospitals, including specialist cancer care, where necessary. This is because hospitals require a critical mass of patients to operate some specialist services - Morriston Hospital, in Swansea, serves as the specialist burns centre for Wales and the South West of England.

"The border between England and Wales is a porous one - patients from England and Wales receive care from the health services on either side of the border. It is therefore concerning that the Care Quality Commission has put the Wye Valley NHS Trust into special measures and rated Hereford County Hospital as inadequate.

"Indeed, the CQC has said that four out of five hospitals it has inspected are not safe. Its annual report, published on October 17, said: Safety was the biggest concern: four out of every five safety ratings were inadequate or requires improvement… far too many hospitals were inadequate on safety and the majority required improvement to be considered safe.'

Slide across the graphics below to see a comparison between performances of the NHS in Wales and England:

Daily Mail claim: "… thousands more are going private or even moving to rented accommodation in England to bypass long waiting lists for heart scans or hip operations."

"Patients in Wales – just as in England – have the right to chose to pay for treatment privately if they wish.

"The fact is the NHS in Wales has paid for 120 patients to have their heart operations performed in an English hospital because the waiting lists were too long - we make no apology for taking action to address such waiting times.

"Since 2011-12, the number of people being treated in England has fallen every year. However, the number of English patients being treated in Wales has risen from 7,888 in 2012-13 to 8,037 in 2013-14.

Daily Mail claim: College of Emergency Medicine “who warned last year, incidentally, that Wales’s A&E departments were ‘at the point of meltdown’.”

"The College of Emergency Medicine published 10 priorities for resolving the 'crisis' in A&E departments in England, Scotland and Wales in 2014.

"At the same time as it was making the 'meltdown' comments about A&E departments in Wales in March 2013, the College was warning that A&E departments were facing 'collapse' in England. Cliff Mann, head of the College of Emergency Medicine, later warned in the Telegraph that A&E departments were like 'war zones'."

Daily Mail claim: “The Welsh Government has until recently been cutting NHS funding by 1% a year, even as the rest of Britain increases it by the same amount.”

“So bad has the situation become that in September the Welsh Government suddenly announced a decision to plough an extra £425m into it over the next two years in an effort to ease the funding crisis.”

"This is untrue. The UK Government has cut the Welsh Government’s budget by £1.5bn (10%) since the Conservative-Lib Dem coalition came to power. Despite these cuts, the Welsh Government has taken action to protect health, investing additional funding in the NHS in 2013-14, 2014-15 and 2015-16. This is an increase of more than 3% per annum.

"The Welsh Government continues to spend more than 2% more per head on health than is spent in England.

"There has been no reduction in revenue funding to the health service in Wales. The reference to 1% comes from a report by the Nuffield Trust and includes capital expenditure. Capital funding from the UK government to Wales has been significantly cut in recent years.

"In the draft Budget, announced in September, an extra £425m will be invested in the NHS in Wales over two years, to meet the challenges identified by the Nuffield report A Decade of Austerity in Wales?

"This is in stark contrast to England, where health unions, Royal Colleges and charities have warned the NHS is at “breaking point” and needs a “fully-costed spending plan, if the £30bn black hole in NHS England’s finances (identified by the Nuffield Trust report about NHS England, A Decade of Austerity?) is to be tackled.

"Two-thirds of hospital trusts have deficits in NHS England. Figures from Monitor showed a £167m deficit had been run up by foundation trusts in the first quarter of 2014-15 alone. Last year they recorded a surplus.

Daily Mail claim: Public appointments: “In Wales, by contrast, the NHS is still governed according to a post-war structure: with seven separate regional health boards, each dominated by Labour supporters."

"The under-fire ABMU, for example, has as its chairman Andrew Davies, a former Labour Assembly Member. The Aneurin Bevan University Health Board, which has responsibility for Nevill Hall, is chaired by David Jenkins, a former general secretary of the Welsh Trades Union Congress.

"And Cardiff and Vale University Health Board, which so failed Ann Clwyd’s husband, is chaired by Maria Battle, a former Labour parliamentary candidate. Given the background of these people, it’s hardly surprising to find widespread evidence of the Welsh NHS prioritising an old-Labour political agenda over the task of improving patient care.”

"This is untrue. The NHS in Wales was re-organised in 2009 to remove the internal market and commissioner and provider split, integrating primary, secondary and mental healthcare. Wales has seven integrated health boards which are responsible for providing all primary, secondary and mental healthcare and three NHS trusts, which provide specialist cancer services, ambulance services and oversee public health. It is based on a planned system.

"Chairs of health boards are appointed via the independent Public Appointments process. Interview is by an independent panel (including an independent commissioner and a recommendation is made to the Health Minister about who is appointable. All political affiliations are declared beforehand. Full details about the Public Appointments process is available here. Chief executives and senior executives are appointed via open competition.

Daily Mail claim: "Gareth Williams' claims have largely been ignored ..."

"This is untrue. Health and Social Services Minister Mark Drakeford commissioned the independent Trusted to Care inquiry, led by Professor June Andrews and Mark Butler following concerns from families about standards at Princess of Wales and Neath Port Talbot hospitals. This report was published on May 18.

"In response to the report's findings and recommendations (which have been accepted in full by Abertawe Bro Morgannwg University Health Board and the Welsh Government), the Health Minister ordered a series of unannounced spot checks of all district general hospitals to be carried out. An independent report published last week into the results of these 70 spot checks concluded there were no systemic problems in the four areas looked at. This report is available at here.

"South Wales Police is continuing to investigate allegations of wilful neglect involving the falsification of entries in patients’ notes at the Princess of Wales Hospital.

"The Minister last week announced an extension to the spot checks process to ensure we continue to identify any areas of poor care of elderly patients quickly and take immediate action to resolve issues, as has been done with the first wave of unannounced spot checks

Daily Mail claim: “The Cardiff government stubbornly refuses to set up its own cancer drugs fund because it might ‘enrich’ drug companies”

"The Welsh Government is clear that it will not be replacing existing evidence-based system with a cancer drugs fund like that in England, which its own chair has admitted provides funding for cancer drugs which have ‘no impact on survival’ and ‘uncertainty as to whether quality of life is improved or not’.

"All medicines approved by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) and the All Wales Medicines Strategy Group (AWMSG) are made routinely available for patients in Wales. Medicines not approved by NICE or AWMSG are generally found to be too costly for the benefit obtained - they are not cost-effective.

"We believe all cancer patients should be able to access the best possible treatments but for this to happen within the NHS budget, prices set by the pharmaceutical industry for new, life-extending drugs must come down. It is impossible to put a price on life but it is not impossible to put a fair price on drugs.

"Research published in the British Journal of Cancer earlier this year concluded that Wales had a faster uptake of medicines most recently launched and subsequently recommended by NICE than in England. It also described the impact of the cancer drugs fund as raising ethical, moral and finance concerns.

"The All-Wales Medicines Strategy Group (AWMSG) has carried out 119 appraisals of new medicines since April 2011, of which 105 have been recommended for use in Wales. One of the latest is the MS drug Sativex – the first cannabis-based medicine to be licensed in the UK, which alleviates the spasticity related to Multiple Sclerosis. Wales is the only part of the UK where Sativex is routinely available to patients on the NHS.

"As of October 2014, AWMSG had completed 22 appraisals of new medicines ahead of the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence, which makes recommendations on an England and Wales basis; 14 of these have been for cancer medicines.

"As of October 2014, AWMSG had appraised and recommended 19 new cancer medicines for use in NHS Wales. These 19 cancer medicines cover 23 clinical indications and all are routinely available to eligible patients. Only nine of these medicines are available in England via the cancer drugs fund.

"Health and Social Services Minister Mark Drakeford ratified the decision to make the new chemotherapy drug Abraxane available to eligible patients with advanced pancreatic cancer in September 2014. Wales is the only country in the UK where this cancer drug is routinely available on the NHS.

"The NHS in Wales is spending more than ever on cancer care – spending on cancer has risen significantly since 2007 when the Welsh Government allocated £314.8m to cancer.

"The latest figures, released as part of the annual publication of the NHS Expenditure Programme Budgets, show spending on cancer care by the Welsh NHS in 2012-13 reached a record high at £360.9m.

"Spending per head of population on cancer in Wales was £117.41 in 2012-13. This is £10 more per head than in England – spending per head on cancer was £107.21 in England in 2012-13."

Daily Mail claim: “Sir Bruce Keogh of NHS England wrote to his Welsh counterpart last November warning six hospitals should be probed over persistently high mortality rates.”

"This is not true. Sir Bruce Keogh is the medical director of NHS England. In his email to the deputy chief medical officer for Wales, Sir Bruce admits there is insufficient data to conclude that an investigation should be carried out into any Welsh hospital. Moreover, Sir Bruce acknowledged that even where data did exist, he could not vouch for its accuracy.

"The points raised by Sir Bruce were discussed with him at a meeting with the deputy chief medical officer for Wales, Dr Chris Jones, attended on December 10, 2013. As NHS England confirmed in a statement in February this year, Sir Bruce “has not offered nor has he been asked to take part in an investigation in Wales. That, quite rightly, is an issue for the NHS in Wales.”

"Health and Social Services Minister commissioned Professor Stephen Palmer to carry out an independent review into the use of mortality data – risk adjusted mortality index (RAMI) in Wales – in March 2013. He also looked at six hospitals with a Welsh RAMI score of more than 100. The Palmer review concluded that RAMI cannot be used as an effective ‘smoke alarm’ to warn about potential failings in care at a hospital.

"But he said the process of reviewing the medical records of all patients who have died in hospital – a system pioneered in Wales – provides a better, more robust way of assessing safety and quality of care at a hospital. Professor Palmer also said no further action needed to be taken at the six hospitals.

"Full details about the Welsh Government’s response to the Palmer report is available here."