Shadow Cabinet Secretary for Health and Social Care James Evans MS has reiterated that the closure of the Welshpool Air Ambulance base will put lives at risk in Powys and across mid Wales, calling the decision to do so “dangerous, irresponsible and morally indefensible”.
Speaking in the Senedd during a debate triggered by a public petition, James said Powys had become a “health desert”, with no district general hospital, limited minor injury provision and ambulances regularly pulled out of the county to cover shortages elsewhere. He warned that losing air ambulance cover on top of this would create an “unacceptable patient-safety vacuum”.
The Wales Air Ambulance service currently uses Rapid Response Vehicles (RRVs), but their use was deemed inefficient from the remote, centralised bases due to poor road networks. The closure of the Welshpool and Caernarfon bases is intended to fund a new, enhanced road-based critical care service (Recommendation 4), designed specifically to provide dedicated high-acuity care to remote, rural areas. The concern is that the established air assets will be withdrawn before this crucial replacement service is confirmed to be operational, creating an unacceptable patient safety vacuum.
James has repeatedly opposed the closure of the Welshpool base, raising cases of constituents waiting extreme lengths of time for emergency help and citing examples where delays have had fatal consequences.
James Evans MS said:
“Powys has no district general hospital, no A&E, now limited minor injury units and ambulances routinely dragged down to heavily populated areas of South Wales. People in Powys have died because help couldn’t reach them in time. Closing the Welshpool Air Ambulance will make an already dangerous situation even worse.
“The so-called ‘mitigation measures’ being offered, the new rapid-response vehicles, don’t yet exist in Powys. The organisation responsible was required to present full proposals last September. Nothing is in place. Rural Wales is being asked to accept a downgrade to already failing services.
“Just because this is ‘legal’, that doesn’t mean it is ethically or morally right to abandon the residents of Powys. This decision is not safe, not fair and not justified. Farmers, walkers, drivers, families, everyone in rural Wales deserves the same emergency access as those living in North Wales or South Wales. The golden hour cannot be a privilege solely for urban areas.
“I am calling for the Welshpool and Caernarfon bases to be retained, and for a full independent public inquiry into the data, the governance failures and the persistent disregard for rural Wales. People pay into this service; they fundraise for it. They deserve better than to be abandoned.”
