Free prescriptions for all must end, say Welsh Tories

"The Conservative Party will scrap free prescriptions for all in Wales if it gains power in the assembly. The party says those who can afford it should pay a modest charge in view of the huge financial pressures on the Welsh NHS. Free prescriptions began two years ago and the policy is being copied in Scotland and Northern Ireland."

BBC Wales also reports the Tory leader in the Cardiff Assembly, Nick Bourne, as saying that "free prescriptions are not, and never will be, 'free' in the true sense of the word.  We are all paying for them by sacrificing money from elsewhere within a health budget stretched to the limit after 10 years of Labour in Wales."  He continues: "We currently have a palliative care system which our own health minister admits is 'patchy' and stroke services described by an expert in the field as 'scandalously bad'."

Brave stuff and just the beginning of what is going to be necessary to cure Labour's debt hangover.

Tim Montgomerie

5pm Julia Manning addresses this issue over at CentreRight.