Consultation response

Welsh Government draft budget

Radical transformation of healthcare is now the only way in which NHS Wales can hope to be on a sustainable footing for the longer term.

13 September 2018

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If the NHS in Wales is to remain sustainable in the long term, large scale system change needs to be planned, resourced and supported, rather than allowed to happen on an ad-hoc basis.

With money continuing to be extremely tight and demand on healthcare services rising, finance and funding can never be far from NHS leaders’ minds. The NHS in Wales, along with other public services, continues to work in an extremely challenging financial climate and it must prioritise and change. As highlighted within the Parliamentary Review of Health and Social Care, published in January 2018, radical transformation of healthcare, and related services, is now the only way in which NHS Wales can hope to be on a sustainable footing for the longer-term. This transformation is not only about reshaping healthcare and doing things very differently - it also involves recalibrating our relationship as patients, and the public, with the NHS.

If the NHS in Wales is to remain sustainable in the long term the Welsh NHS Confederation believes large scale system change needs to be planned, resourced and supported, rather than allowed to happen on an ad-hoc basis. At the same time, the NHS in Wales has a clear duty to provide high quality and safe healthcare services to the people of Wales within the resources available. The NHS in Wales is already adopting and implementing a prudent healthcare and valued-based healthcare approach to support sustainability in the future.