THE Senedd has narrowly rejected calls to declare a health emergency as the Conservatives warned NHS Wales is in the worst state it has ever been.

James Evans argued that nearly one in five people are waiting for treatment, with more than 250,000 people waiting more than nine months for care.

Leading a Tory debate on Wednesday, the shadow health secretary told the Senedd more than 100,000 people in Wales wait more than 12 hours in A&E each month.

Mr Evans said: “While they wait, ambulances queue outside, unable to offload patients, tying up paramedics who should be on the road saving lives.

“The ambulance service has not hit its target for eight-minute response times for life-threatening calls for four years straight.”

He warned GP services are overwhelmed, NHS dentistry is collapsing and mental health services are also in crisis.

“If that’s not an emergency, I do not know what is,” he said.

Mabon ap Gwynfor, Plaid Cymru’s shadow health secretary, supported the Tory motion, saying that his party made calls to declare a health emergency in February 2024.

He said since then “waiting lists have broken records another nine times, and every one of the seven regional health boards has stayed in special measures of one kind or another.”

Describing Labour’s record over the past 26 years as unacceptable, Mr ap Gwynfor accused ministers of changing targets on a whim and refusing to admit failure.

Labour’s Carolyn Thomas pointed to the impact of the pandemic on waiting lists and Tory austerity, which “tore at the fabric of society.”

Hitting back at his opposite number, health secretary Jeremy Miles said: “Let me tell him what a health emergency is — it’s Covid, it’s mpox, it’s war, it’s terrorism.”