News / Wales faces ‘stark choice’

30 June 2014

Login to access this content

The NHS in Wales faces a stark choice between managed change and potentially chaotic decline, according to Welsh NHS Confederation director Helen Birtwhistle.

Ms Birtwhistle was responding to a Nuffield Trust report, entitled A decade of austerity in Wales, which was commissioned by the Welsh government. According to the report, NHS Wales faced an estimated £2.5bn shortfall by 2025/26, which would be caused by rising costs and tight public finances.

The figure assumes funding rises in line with inflation after 2015/16 and takes into account efficiency savings currently being made in NHS Wales. To close the gap, the report said NHS Wales would have to improve productivity at a record rate and sustain this over an unprecedented period.

Lead author and trust senior analyst Adam Roberts said funding was already tight, but the big question was what will happen after the 2015 spending review.

‘Our models show that, maintaining NHS funding level in real terms from 2015/16, the NHS in Wales is looking at a shortfall worth over two-fifths of its annual budget by 2025/26,’ he said.

However, if funding rose in line with the current projections for the UK economy, NHS Wales would still face a substantial, though achievable, challenge, he added.

Ms Birtwhistle said: ‘The stark choice between managed change in services now, or potentially chaotic decline in services in the future, must be made plain to all our staff and to the public.’

Welsh Assembly health minister Mark Drakeford said the report showed that the NHS must continue to change and end its over-reliance on hospitals.