The BBC election bus in Carmarthen

The bus is spending the days up to polling on 3 May touring Wales.

In Carmarthen, Carmarthen West and South Pembrokeshire candidates responded to hospital concerns from student Claire Lewis, 21, from Rhayader.

She is one of the Wales 60, a voters' group drawn up by the BBC, and asked what they would do to keep local hospital services running.

She also raised concerns over hospital reconfiguration.

Locally there have been strong feelings over a report, which was subsequently rejected, raising the idea of creating one super hospital to cover Carmarthenshire and Pembrokeshire.

Click on the links below for the candidates' responses, and for Miss Lewis' verdict on it all.

Angela Burns

We have said when we get into power our number one priority is to stop Labour's NHS cuts. We believe hospitals should be local to the people that they serve. There is absolutely no point in someone who is sick or people who need regular hospital visits to have to travel hundreds of miles to get there.

The other thing that is often overlooked is just the sheer size of our country. Here in Carmarthen West and South Pembrokeshire we cover a big rural area and if you are pregnant and you need to have check-ups and you live in somewhere like Angle, you do not want to have to drive to Carmarthen or Swansea. You want to be able to stay local.

If you take local services away then you rip the heart out of the community and we just end up being some vast agricultural dormitory to a city.

Malcolm Calver

All current evidence that I have seen is that the status quo should exist and unless someone can say something different to me, I think at this stage we need to keep all the local district general hospitals open.

You have got to keep services as local as you can but you have also got to be realistic. Some people will have to go to various different parts of Wales to get specialist treatment. I just took my wife just yesterday to Singleton Hospital in Swansea - it was a journey but that is where the expert is.

If someone comes up with statistics telling me the best option is to centralise services I would have to look at it seriously, but they would have to prove to me that it is the best option.

John Dixon

What we need to do is ensure that our health services are geared to the communities that they serve.

That means providing the services that people need as close as possible to where they need them. It means keeping the hospital structure that we have got, keeping the local services and strengthening them to meet the community needs.

The plan to build a super hospital in Whiteland was a real irrelevance to the immediate need of people in their communities. I believe it was only put forward as a means of trying to sell the idea of closing Withybush Hospital and that the real plan all along was simply to continue to develop Glangwili

However the plan was rightly stopped by strong local protests and it shows people take a real interest in health issues and the way in which the health service is structured.

John Gossage

We want to retain district general hospitals with facilities such as maternity bed care and accident and emergency and medical emergency care - a full range of services within a hospital and not a stabilisation service for shipment further on for treatment.

We are in favour of building up primary care as was envisaged in the original Walness Report. The problem has been Labour has not delivered what was envisaged and we are now moving into a period when resources will be substantially less abundant.

There is a role for community hospitals to allow step down care for where people who, for instance, do not need the resources of a district general hospital but are too frail to return home. That is a very valuable role for a community hospital to perform.

There is a big is beautiful philosophy in the NHS but health economists at York University argue that optimum size is between 200 and 400 beds which would mean that Withybush, at just under 300, would be slap bang in the middle of that range.

Christine Gwyther

My plans for keeping our local hospitals thriving is to carry on the investment in them. Just before Christmas, Brian Gibbons announced �25m for Glangwili - there is going to be a �30m capital investment in Withybush in Haverfordwest - and I think it is important that we keep that money rolling in.

When people actually get into hospitals or are visiting people they can see that money is being spent.

About a year ago there was consultation which went across the whole of Wales - there was a discussion over whether Withybush and Glangwilli should be downgraded with one big super hospital in the middle. It was one of those blue sky thinking ideas that went down like a lead balloon. People were united that both district generals needed to be kept and improved and the decision was taken on board by the Welsh Assembly Government - I'm so pleased it was.

Keeping our services local makes economic sense and it certainly makes sense in a social justice way.

Claire Lewis

They all seem to be saying keep hospital services local - which is what you would expect them to say and what they need to say to win the voters.

I was quite impressed by what the Conservatives say because they take into account the rural nature of Wales - that it is a large area.

I also agree with Malcolm Calver. He said yes you do have to travel a bit to have the best specialist services, which is practical where you have cancer services and such like.