Protect our NHS with sensible use

IT’S not the first time that some health boards in Wales have run up deficits, but there’s a sense that the finances of NHS Wales are becoming increasingly perilous.

The fact that deficits have occurred before the potential impact of the coronavirus has made itself felt makes the situation all the more worrying.

All public bodies have to function within budgets that have been set for them.

But it seems that for some health boards, the pressures they are under make it impossible to operate within the financial limits imposed on them.

In one sense, the NHS is a victim of its own success in helping people to live longer. Higher life expectancy, despite a recent blip in Wales, means that the resources needed to keep people alive have to be increased.

When the cost of prescription drugs goes up, the NHS has little choice but to pay the higher purchase prices. It has some leverage because of the need to buy drugs in bulk, but with demand constantly rising it faces tough challenges.

It’s generally accepted that the NHS is short of both doctors and nurses. In the context of Brexit, and a climate where foreigners are increasingly made to feel unwelcome, it is no surprise that many have left.

The idea of training up more UK residents to be doctors is commendable in itself, but easier to refer to as a piece of rhetoric in a political speech than to deliver.

That means we will want to hold onto – and recruit – as many foreign doctors as we can lay our hands on for quite a few years yet.

Accident and emergency units are becoming increasingly dysfunctional, as many people use them as a substitute for seeking an appointment with a GP or instead of self-medicating. It’s very difficult to tell people they cannot use the A&E unit at their nearest hospital, but many visits are unnecessary and increase waits for patients who are in genuine need of the service.

If the coronavirus takes hold in the way worst-case scenarios are predicting, the NHS will be under even more pressure.

It’s a crisis with no easy solution. But everybody has a duty to use our health service responsibly, and not to abuse what it has to offer simply because it’s free at the point of use. That’s how we want it to remain, but if costs continue to rise at the rate they are, unpalatable options may have to be looked at more seriously.