For months, I have been challenging a deeply unfair policy implemented by Powys Teaching Health Board that is delaying treatment for patients in Mid Wales.

Due to chronic underfunding by the Welsh Government, every health board in Wales is running a budget deficit, and Powys is no different. Healthcare austerity is causing real harm to real people, who are being left to live with pain longer than necessary, even when treatment is available sooner.

Powys has no general hospital. We rely on hospitals across the border in England, particularly in Herefordshire and Shropshire. It was my Liberal Democrat predecessors Richard Livsey and Roger Williams who fought to establish and protect these cross-border arrangements, and they remain essential to healthcare in Mid Wales today. English hospitals frequently have the capacity to carry out operations my constituents are waiting for, including hip and knee replacements.

But Powys Teaching Health Board has been forced to slow its waiting times to match Welsh lists, which are among the worst in the UK, having surpassed 800,000 last October. The effect is to tether Powys patients to a failing system when better options exist just miles away. Withholding available treatment is not an administrative inconvenience. It is immoral.

I held a parliamentary debate on this issue earlier this year and raised it directly with the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Wales. When I pressed her on the impact on my constituents, she told me she did not agree with my analysis. I would invite her to speak with the people of Mid Wales living with that pain, and to reconsider. I have also repeatedly sought engagement with the Welsh Health Minister, who has so far declined to intervene.

People in Mid Wales deserve timely access to healthcare, not artificial delays imposed by political misalignment. I will not stop until we get it.

As always, please contact me at [email protected] or on 01792 316380 if I can be of assistance at any time.