People with epilepsy in Wales are facing an average wait of eight months or more to see a specialist, compared with six weeks in England. Epilepsy Wales says there are only 14 full-time equivalent neurologists in Wales, rather than the 45 there should be, based on population levels.

A Welsh MP has launched an astonishing attack on his local council, claiming it only cares about balancing books and not solving people’s problems. John Smith said he was ashamed of what he described as the Vale of Glamorgan Council’s lack of concern for the vulnerable people in his constituency. He claimed the council was putting cost-cutting ahead of pensioners in need of help. He claimed the council was refusing to fund statutory social services for adults – such as home helps and day care centres – because it has a £5.5m shortfall in its budget.

In 1999 politicians were prepared to abseil down hospital buildings to prove their commitment to the NHS. After descending a 130ft wall in Cardiff, Alun Michael promised Labour would invest and reform if they won the first Welsh assembly elections. Once elected, Mr Michael lasted less than a year as leader of the assembly government, but what about his promises to improve the Welsh health service?

Firefighters are acting as stand-in paramedics to take seriously ill patients to hospital as the Welsh Ambulance Service is beset by delays. Ambulances have taken so long to reach emergencies that firefighters have been forced to take casualties to hospital themselves in fire engines.

A murderer who went missing from an open prison before being recaptured more than two months later has died after he was found hanging in his cell, the Prison Service said today. Lee Dewhurst, 35, from Rochdale, Greater Manchester, was found hanging by prison officers at HMP Bristol on Sunday at around 2pm.

A third of all inmates in Welsh prisons have no need to be there, says a senior probation service official. South Wales Probation chief executive Ian Lankshear told BBC Wales’ Week In Week Out they could be safely managed in the community if better supervised.

A headmaster took a boy into his bed and sexually assaulted him during a school trip, a court heard yesterday. Christopher Barker, 45, a headteacher in Wrexham, is accused of abusing the schoolboy on five separate occasions. Mold Crown Court heard Barker had developed an “unusually close and affectionate” relationship with the child.

A 22-year-old man has died in hospital after he was arrested by police for his own safety. The man, from Newport, South Wales, was reported missing on Saturday. A Gwent Police spokeswoman said that following a search of the area he was found by officers and arrested under the Mental Health Act.

Cardigan is to get a new modernised hospital after councillors approved planning permission for a £50m development of the Bath House site. Liberty Mercian, a South Wales property develop- ment company, plans to build a retail, social care housing and hospital on the land just to the north of the town centre.

The scale of the debt facing the NHS in Wales was revealed yesterday, topping £100m and threatening the future of hospitals around the country. Health Minister Dr Brian Gibbons last night admitted that the health service’s accumulated debts were far worse than previously estimated. He put the figure at “around £100m” and also warned that last year’s financial pressures were still present.