Welsh Labour promises NHS will see people within 48 hours in manifesto. 2 days ago. David Deans,Wales political reporterand. Mark Palmer,BBC Wales. People with a pressing medical need will be seen within 48 hours should Labour win the next Senedd election, the party’s Welsh leader has pledged.. Eluned Morgan launched her manifesto for the Senedd election on Monday morning in Swansea, claiming her party is more “serious” at running the country than her rivals.. The first minister promised not to use Welsh government powers to raise income tax levels, and to meet a target for NHS patients to be seen within 26 weeks for treatment.. Voters in Wales go to the polls on 7 May to elect 96 member to the Welsh Parliament.. Plans include a £2 cap on bus fares for adults, £4bn on more hospitals, and boosts to childcare and free school meals.. The respected Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) think tank said Labour’s plans to increase spending would “almost certainly require cuts”.. Athena. Opinion polls have suggested Labour is in third place behind Plaid Cymru and Reform, which are both vying to win the election.. Morgan promised a “new deal for the NHS”, acknowledging that the Welsh public was “frustrated” with the state of the health service.. “Getting a GP appointment though can feel like a battle for some, and for many families progress just feels too slow”, she said.. She said under a Welsh Labour government, “people will be able to access a primary health care professional within 48 hours if they have a problem that really can’t wait”.. “If something doesn’t feel right, you should be able to get help quickly, not weeks later.”. She said it will “take work” to achieve the target and would mean “shifting funding and services from hospitals into the community”.. The manifesto did not say who in primary care would see an individual within 48 hours – whether that is a GP, a nurse or someone else.. Morgan told BBC Wales that GPs are party of primary care teams “but so are ophthalmologists, so are physiotherapists, so the mental health team, so there’s a huge number of people that you can go to”.. A new contract brought in by England’s NHS requires patients to be seen on the same day by their GP.. Asked why her target was lower, Morgan said: “Well, let’s see them deliver that”, adding: “I’m going to go for what I think is realistic for Wales.”. Labour’s manifesto promises to meet the 26-week waiting time target for referral to treatment.. The Welsh government has not hit the target since at least September 2011, when it changed how it counted waits.. NHS figures in March reported that hospital waiting lists had seen a record drop, with latest statistics indicating the total number of patients had fallen eight months in a row.. But by some measures waiting times were up, including the number of people waiting for diagnostics.. Labour have also promised to spend £4bn over a decade on new hospitals, and recruit the staff the NHS needs through a “long-term wor
