Darren Millar AM: It's time for a Cancer Treatment Fund for Wales

Darren Millar AM is Shadow Minister for Health and Assembly Member for Clwyd West.  Follow Darren on Twitter.

Since the inception of the Welsh Assembly in 1999, Labour has been in power.  Testament to its failure to deliver prosperity or improvements in vital public services, is Labour’s management of the NHS, which remains the poor man of the United Kingdom.  The service masks so much inequity for Welsh patients, but nothing lays bare the unfairness of Labour’s NHS more than their refusal to consider a Cancer Drugs Fund.

There can be no argument that access to cancer drugs in Wales differs to other parts of the UK. We hear far too often the tragic stories of Welsh patients who can’t access life-prolonging treatments that are available across the border.

It is impossible to imagine the devastation of the emotions that a patient must go through when they are told that they cannot have access to a drug or treatment that could prolong their life because of their postcode. I have dealt with many of these cases, both in my capacity as Clwyd West Assembly Member and Shadow Minister for Health.

Darren Millar AM: Wales' free prescriptions subsidise the wealthy while denying cancer patients the drugs they need

Darren Millar AM represents Clwyd West in the National Assembly for Wales and is the Shadow Minister for Health.

Five years ago this week saw the introduction of a policy that allows absolutely everyone access to free prescriptions in Wales. Everyone. Even the wealthy, the rich and the very rich. Wales is now a country where a millionaire is able to walk into a pharmacy and hand over a prescription for paracetamol. Prescriptions like these cost the NHS an average of over eight pounds to dispense, yet a short drive away the same medication would be available for 16 pence in a local shop or supermarket. At the same time that the millionaire collects his paracetamol, cancer patients are being denied access to modern and potentially life-saving drugs because the NHS can’t afford them. It is immoral and it is completely unsustainable.

The Welsh health budget is facing record breaking cuts of over half a billion pounds during the next three years. Labour is not protecting the budget in line with inflation and services are already being massively stretched. Meanwhile, vital funding is being used to give the super-rich bonjela, painkillers and athlete’s foot powder (which has also seen a rise in prescriptions). That just doesn’t make sense.

Last week the government published figures that prove just how out-of-control this policy has become. In the five years since its introduction, the number of prescription items dispensed has risen by over 15 per cent to 72.2 million. That means, on average, every single person in Wales – man, woman or child – received 24 prescriptions in 2011. Statistics clearly demonstrate that more people are popping NHS pills in Wales than in any other part of the UK, and yet the estimated cost of unused or unwanted NHS medicines stands at around 50 million pounds every year.

Darren Millar AM: What Conservatives in Scotland need to learn from Wales

Darren Millar AM represents Clwyd West in the National Assembly for Wales and is Shadow Minister for Communities and Local Government.

The announcement of a review into the future direction of the Conservative Party north of the border cannot have come a moment too soon. The fortunes of the party in Scotland have failed to recover from the crushing defeat in the general election of 1997 when it failed to return a single MP to Westminster. Although there may now at least be one blue patch on the political map of Scotland, the fact that the party's share of the vote was even lower last month, at 16.7%, than it was 13 years ago, is a cause for deep concern.

While our colleagues in Scotland have gone from one poor election result to the next, faced with a similar situation in 1997 the Welsh Conservatives have made significant progress, bouncing back to increase our share of the vote at each general election since and increasing our representation, taking 8 seats this year - two more than than in John Major's surprise election victory in 1992.

So what's the secret of our success in Wales, and what can our counterparts in Scotland learn from us?

The first thing to recognise is that 1997 was not the lowest point for the Conservatives in either Scotland or Wales. In May 1999 the party sank even further polling just 15.6% and 15.8% of the vote in the elections to the Scottish Parliament and the Welsh Assembly respectively. They were disastrous results by any stretch of the imagination and were pretty predictable given the attitude of the party UK-wide to both devolution and the establishment on the new institutions. The message from the electorate was pretty clear - if you want our vote, you will have to change. It's a message that the Welsh Conservatives heard loud and clear.

Change is never easy, either personally or corporately, but if the following two lessons are applied in Scotland then I am confident of an improvement in the fortunes of our cousins north of the border:

Lesson Number 1 - Embrace devolution

For a party that believes in localism, it is rather extraordinary that so many of us have such a hard time swallowing devolution.  Devolution of powers from Westminster to Edinburgh, Cardiff Bay and Belfast - and then from there to councils, communities and individuals, is what we Conservatives should be about. Instead, many have spent the past decade making inconsistent arguments for localism, yet against devolution! It is double-mindedness that doesn't make sense. If we really believe in localism, then we must embrace devolution.