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In a time when the term ‘left-wing radical’ is used as an insult – usually online – one man who wore it as a badge of honour was Aneurin Bevan.

Often lionised by all those who proclaim to love the NHS, the Welshman helped drag post-war Britain into the modern 20th century with the health service’s founding principle of free at the point of delivery.

“No society can legitimately call itself civilised if a sick person is denied medical aid because of lack of means,” the Tredegar-born Labour politician said.

This big idea of a socialised healthcare system is the very epitome of ‘left-wing radicalism’.

So reading the Audit Wales’ report into the health board that carries his name, I couldn’t help but wonder what would he make of the organisation today?

Another of Bevan’s famous quotations, about the compromises he had to make with doctors to get the NHS off the ground is: “I stuffed their mouths with gold”.

While he was referring to allowing consultants to keep their private practice, over the decades it has become entangled with GPs and their status as independent contractors.

GPs, according to the official history of the British Medical Association in Wales, were not opposed to the idea of a general medical service – just the idea of being salaried officers of the state and the impact it would have on their independence.

And so another compromise was made – allowing GP practices to be their own business and provide primary healthcare under a General Medical Services contract.

Almost 80 years on, this is still the predominant model of how GPs are funded by the NHS, while allowing you to see them for free.

And it is one of the reasons how Aneurin Bevan University Health Board ended up in the mess of awarding contracts without doing the proper checks.

We can all agree that GPs are under huge pressure. A lack of funding, creaking infrastructure, and an aging population with increasing levels of comorbidity.

Coupled with a desperation to keep the show on the road, so that patients could be treated, it is easy to see why ABUHB felt rushed to allow £10m worth of contracts to go to the partnership of doctors Jalil Ahmed and Jonathan Allinson, together with their eHarley Street company.

But letting that pressure blind it to the obvious fragility of allowing one company to run eight practices, all within a couple of years, means there are questions for the top.

When I contacted ABUHB for a comment regarding the Audit Wales report, I asked its media team if there had been any management changes; and whether the health board wished to apologise to patients and staff for its failures.

If you haven’t read the response, then I’m afraid there aren’t prizes for guessing that no apology was made; nor any indication that anyone in the organisation was held accountable for messing up.

The person at the top of ABUHB is chief executive Nicola Prygodzicz, who was appointed to her role in September 2022.

A Chartered Accountant, Ms Prygodzicz has overseen the health board move to within a step of being placed in special measures because of its finances – £18m in the red for 2025/26.

The health board is also in trouble with the Welsh Government about the poor state of its A&E service, mainly at (you guessed it) the all-singing, all-dancing, flagship Grange hospital.

I’ve also been told that since Ms Prygodzicz joined the health board, it has evolved into a very top-down organisation. In certain departments, if your face doesn’t fit, you’re out the door.

Senedd Members past have also told me the relationship with the chief executive is vastly different compared to predecessors Judith Paget (who is now overall chief executive of NHS Wales) and before her, Dr Andrew Goodall (now the Permanent Secretary of the Welsh Government- the country’s top civil servant).

It is not just financial matters where ABUHB is failing. I’ve mentioned A&E, but there has also been a litany of medical mishaps.

We’ve had eye operations cancelled because of unsterilised equipment, a lumbar puncture performed by a physician associate (think what a PCSO is to a police officer), and a mother who, while losing her four-day-old baby, felt ignored by midwives.

And who could forget the unforgivable mortuary mix-up? Where two bereaved families were given the wrong bodies for cremation.

Last month we reported how outgoing health board chair Ann Lloyd was praised for her leadership overseeing the management team.

In her leaving remarks, before being replaced by former RCT Council leader Andrew Morgan, she told a meeting: “You can’t do it without a good team, and that’s what we have.”

With such tone-deaf backslapping on display, I doubt Aneurin Bevan himself would stuff their mouths with gold.

Richard Gurner

Editor and Publisher of Caerphilly Observer