For far too long, the experience inside many Welsh hospitals has resembled a struggle rather than a place people go for help. I’ve heard from patients left in pain for hours in A&E, from families waiting anxiously for treatments that never seem to come, and from exhausted staff trying to hold the system together. When 900 deaths in a single year are linked to excessive waits, we cannot pretend this is simply pressure. Our health service is in deep crisis.

After nearly three decades of Labour running Wales, propped up by Plaid Cymru and the Liberals, the picture is bleak. A patient in Wales is 375 times more likely to wait over two years for treatment than someone in England. One in four people are now stuck on an NHS waiting list. This isn’t a seasonal problem; it’s long-term, systemic failure.

Wales needs bold action, and only the Welsh Conservatives are offering a credible plan to deliver it. That’s why repairing our NHS would be the top priority of a Welsh Conservative Government.

From day one, we would declare a national health emergency, not as a slogan, but to force every department to pull together behind recovery. We will cut the unacceptable backlog and ensure people can see a GP within seven days. We will invest in recruiting and retaining consultants, GPs and specialist nurses, ensuring they feel respected and supported.

We will boost capacity by reopening closed wards, expanding Minor Injury Units, creating surgical hubs to speed up operations, and rolling out new Diagnostic Centres, and we will underpin this with real-terms funding increases every year, overseen by an NHS Efficiency Taskforce to make sure every pound goes where it is most needed.

However, fixing the NHS isn’t just about treatment, it’s about prevention too. We will overhaul screening services, introduce a national prostate cancer screening scheme, and give mental health the same priority as physical health.

We will also stand by older people who have worked hard all their lives by raising the capital limit for residential care to £75,000, so families aren’t forced to see their life savings disappear.

Our NHS must stay free at the point of use, but it also needs competent leadership and a renewed focus on patients. Wales deserves a service that works, not one that is drifting into decline. With the right vision, we can restore pride in our health service and replace despair with hope.

Only the Welsh Conservatives are ready to deliver that change.