Wales government allocates additional Covid funding

The funding was announced by Wales health minister Eluned Morgan (pictured), and includes £411m for ongoing costs and £140m to boost recovery and tackling waiting times. The latest performance figures, released today, show NHS Wales under increasing pressure. In June 2021, there were 624,909 patient pathways waiting to start treatment, the highest since comparable data was first collected in 2011. 

The minister said that Covid had significantly impacted Welsh health and social services, which still faced considerable costs in dealing with the pandemic. The £411m would help fund the vaccination programme, testing, and personal protective equipment, as well as new cleaning standards for infection control.

She added: ‘The knock-on effect from dealing with the pandemic has also been huge. Waiting lists have increased by more than 33% and are now at record levels. Getting back to where we were before the pandemic is going to take a lot of time and investment in new ways of working. So we are also providing an extra £140m to the NHS for this work.’

Some £100m will be used to help health boards’ recovery plans, including speeding up the treatment of those who have been waiting the longest. The remaining £40m is for equipment and adapting hospitals and other buildings to increase capacity for routine procedures, while maintaining Covid-safe areas.

‘I recognise it is a huge task just to get back to where we were before the pandemic. However, we must also grasp this opportunity to adopt new ways of working and create a sustainable health and social care system that can meet the demands of the future,’ she added.

The funding is in addition to the £100m announced in May for the government’s health and social services recovery plan.

Welsh NHS Confederation director Darren Hughes welcomed the funding. ‘While Covid remains with us, there are a number of factors that affect the ability of the NHS to meet demand. Measures in place to keep everyone safe from the virus, workforce shortages and extremely high levels of demand across the breadth of health and care services make it very difficult to make headway with planned elective surgery,’ he said.

Pressure in social care is compounding the situation in the health sector, and a whole system approach was needed, including a long-term sustainable plan for health and care, was needed.

He added: ‘Following the knock-on effects of dealing with the pandemic, there’s no denying the health and care system has a huge challenge ahead. NHS leaders are doing all they can to deal with demand whilst rebuilding and planning for the future.’