Letter to the Editor: Rhun ap Iorwerth MS has said that the Welsh Health Minister has been “missing in action” during the current NHS crisis (Health, Cambrian News, 11 January). As a journalist, and Plaid Cymru Parliamentary candidate, he will be aware of the need to raise his profile but it is unfortunate he should scorn the Health Minister, Eluned Morgan, to do so.

He acknowledges that Westminster “holds the purse strings” but then says that the NHS decline has “happened on Labour’s watch”, echoing the Welsh Conservative attack line, which does not describe how tight the purse strings are held. He will know about the Barnett Formula, that has short changed Wales by £180 per person per year — over half a billion pounds — every year of “Labour’s watch” but conveniently ignores it.

He says the Welsh Government is not without power to act, so perhaps he can demonstrate how Paul can rob Peter to achieve his financial alchemy. Gwynedd is facing its highest ever deficit of £12,000,000, and there is no mention of the Senedd riding to the rescue.

Eluned Morgan can be forgiven for hoping the crisis may ease, millions of people are hoping for a change of government, a central reason why I write letters to the press. Ironically, she has proposed the best long-term solution to our health system in my lifetime, that we should take better care of ourselves. That will not solve the present crisis, but it is not a vain hope, it would transform the health service, and the lives of millions,

Roger Louvet,

Porthmadog