Wales must rise to the NHS challenge
WE ARE used to hearing warnings that the NHS is under strain and there is regular talk of crises in different parts of the United Kingdom but a new urgency can be detected.
The Welsh Health Secretary has warned of “difficult days” ahead as pressures on services intensify with “unprecedented” surges in demand.
Consultations for flu doubled to 37.7 per 100,000 people in the first week of this year. GP and primary care services have had to cope with 100,000 patients on peak days.
In both Wales and England targets are being missed. Politicians like to use stats as ammunition against one another but patients will simply wonder why they have to wait so long for an operation – or endure such a lengthy wait in A&E.
People cherish the principles upon which the NHS was founded and value the kindness and dedication of staff but the perception is building of services at risk of being overwhelmed.
Clwyd West Conservative AM Darren Millar said the NHS in Wales is now “operating in a nearpermanent state of emergency” amid reports that on average hospitals can experience the top level of pressure for nearly a third of a year.
The public are used to hearing complaints about health funding. When income tax-varying powers are transferred to the Assembly we can expect debates as to whether taxpayers should contribute more to purchase world-class technology and drugs and hire the top staff; other AMs will look to areas of Welsh Government expenditure that could be pared back to put more into the NHS and question investment decisions with a new ferocity.
At a time of tight budgets, ministers face vexing decisions. The Welsh Government has signalled it may be prepared to support the Swansea Bay Tidal Lagoon, for example, but AMs will expect evidence that every pound of public expenditure can be justified.
Money has a key impact on the quality of our health services but it is by no means the only factor which determines whether people get the standard of care they deserve.
The Auditor General for Wales reported in July that the nation’s health spending has gone up by an average of 2.9% each year – “a real terms rise from £6.2bn in 2013-14 to £6.7bn in 2016-17”.
Health services also thrive or fail according to the quality of management, the structures in which they operate, and the life choices all of us make. Radical changes in alcohol consumption, exercise, smoking and diet could have a greater impact on the NHS in Wales than any initiative.
But it is also true that while the values of the NHS should be sacrosanct we should be open to bold change in how services work. The foundation of the health service and the welfare state took away much of the dread that illness would lead to destitution; we now need greater integration of social care and the NHS so older citizens can be cared for with dignity, intelligence and excellence and can live without fear. The Western Mail newspaper is published by Media Wales a subsidiary company of Trinity Mirror PLC, which is a member of IPSO, the Independent Press Standards Organisation. The entire contents of The Western Mail are the copyright of Media Wales Ltd. It is an offence to copy any of its contents in any way without the company’s permission. If you require a licence to copy parts of it in any way or form, write to the Head of Finance at Six Park Street. The recycled paper content of UK newspapers in 2016 was 62.8%