Laura Anne Jones has appealed to Catherine Fookes, MP for Monmouthshire, to “show more compassion”, after the newly-elected MP voted to cut winter fuel payments.

Ms Jones made the intervention after new figures revealed that the Starmer Government’s winter fuel cut put 94,760 more pensioners in A&E than last year.

This additional pressure on the NHS comes as leading physicians have said hospital treatment in corridors has become “endemic” in every emergency department in Wales.

The vice-president of the Royal College of Emergency Medicine has said that RCEM research “clearly shows that exceptional pressure is now the everyday norm in Wales’ emergency departments.”

Laura Anne Jones MS, Senedd Member for South Wales East, said: “Our A&Es in Wales are under unbearable pressure, and it’s no different for our own emergency department at The Grange Hospital.

“The decision to cut winter fuel payments has placed even further pressure on our emergency departments, where we’re already seeing the endemic use ‘corridor care’, which is degrading for patients and staff alike.

“I appeal to the Monmouthshire MP to show more compassion in future when using her vote on behalf of the people of our county, and to think of our vulnerable elderly and think of our struggling NHS, before casting that vote.”