NHS will take years to recover from effects of pandemic, says report

IT WILL take years for the Welsh NHS to recover from the fallout of the coronavirus pandemic, thanks in part to a massive backlog of patients and new demands on some services.

Although the Welsh Government pumped in an extra £1.4n to the NHS for 2020-21 in response to the pandemic, this is set to end in the middle of the coming financial year.

A new study has estimated that the costs of dealing with postpandemic health pressures will reach hundreds of millions of pounds for at least the next five years.

Cardiff University’s Wales Governance Centre has assessed a number of factors and found there will be a significant funding gap between health spending by the UK Ggovernment in England and total funding pressures for the NHS in Wales.

The shortfall could peak at £740m in 2022-23, the report concluded, and could average £360m a year from 2023-24 to 2025-26.

The lack of cash will inevitably lead to tough decisions and tradeoffs for the next Welsh Government after the Senedd elections on May 6, it concluded.

The study assessed pre-pandemic trends in NHS spending and underlying spending pressures from an ageing population, as well as the likely significant additional funding pressures for the NHS over the course of the next Senedd term.

The factors considered include: ■■The direct costs of Covid-19 over coming years, such as ongoing costs for the Test, Trace, Protect programme and potential future re-vaccinations; ■■Productivity losses as a result of social distancing and heightened infection control;

■■The cost of clearing the backlog in elective care waiting lists; ■■New demands on the NHS, such as on mental health services.

Despite ploughing £1.4bn into the Welsh NHS response to the Covid-19 pandemic, this will not be enough to meet the direct and indirect costs of the pandemic, the report said.

Wales was able to make some savings thanks in part to the cost of

PPE and the devolved element of the test and trace system in Wales (£533m) coming in at roughly half the level of consequentials stemming from English spending on test and trace and PPE (£1,084m). These costs were £158 per person lower in Wales than in England.

This meant the Welsh Government was able to carry forward £500m of Covid-19 funding from 2020-21 into 2021-22. So far, £440m has been allocated for the Welsh NHS Covid-19 costs in the first six months of 2021-22.

Guto Ifan, a researcher on the Wales Fiscal Analysis project, said: “While the Welsh Government appears to be in a position to meet funding pressures this year, in the face of significant post-pandemic spending pressures, the outlook for the Welsh budget is relatively austere.

“Current UK Government spending plans contain no Covid-19 related funding for years after 2021-22 and assume NHS spending in England returns to pre-Covid-19 multi-year spending plans next year.

“Only passing on health-related consequentials to the NHS would likely fall short of funding pressures but would still entail cutting most other areas of the budget in 202223.

“The next Welsh Government will need to balance these additional pressures against huge funding challenges elsewhere in the budget and the potential use of devolved tax levers.”