Dr Elin Walker Jones

Candidate for Clwyd West constituency and North Wales region (no. 3)

Tell us about yourself

Originally from Carmarthen, I’ve lived in North Wales for over twenty years with my husband and four children. I work as an NHS clinical psychologist with children and young people with learning disabilities and neurodevelopmental conditions.

I’ve always been interested in politics, acutely aware that the needs of the people of Wales are largely ignored by Westminster, and so, I’ve always been a proud supporter of an independent Wales. My NHS work has highlighted the inequalities of our society in Wales today, so I’m keen to do what I can to change things so that people have better opportunities for happy and healthy lives with their loved ones.

I’m also a county and city councillor, which has allowed me to campaign and work locally on issues such as the environment, poverty, better housing and road safety, as well as those issues that I come across in my NHS work.

What is the most important thing you think the Senedd should do in the next five years?

The issue that has dominated our headlines for the past year or so has inevitably been the pandemic. It has demonstrated the importance of working together across the planet to tackle issues that affect us as human beings, such as pandemic, climate change, poverty, inequality and so on. We need an internationalist, joined up approach to address these human problems.

One important issue for me is the need to find ways of caring for our children, and also older people and I believe that social care, like healthcare, should be free at the point of delivery and that carers should have pay parity with NHS staff. We need one structure that delivers both health and social care, effectively and efficiently across Wales.

What will you do for Clwyd West / North Wales if elected?

Clwyd West is a constituency with people with diverse needs, from the densely populated coast where there is a high incidence of retired people, with increasing health and social care needs, to the sparsely populated rural and agricultural hinterland, where issues raised have been to do with accessible social care, digital poverty, lack of jobs, infrastructure, and appropriate and affordable housing is an issue across the constituency, as in other parts of Wales. Not all constituents are aware that many of these issues are devolved.

I’d like to engage communities at grassroots level to tackle some of these issues, to mobilise the most powerful force of change that we have: the voices of our communities.