Welsh Government
Printable version

Primary care services to benefit from £3.5m extra NHS funding

A £3.5 million funding boost to improve primary care services has been approved for schemes across Wales, the Health Minister Mark Drakeford announced yesterday.

Providing eye care services closer to people’s homes; preventing premature deaths from cardiovascular disease; developing the skills of the primary care providers; and reducing health inequalities though community action in our most deprived communities are to benefit from the funding.

The funding is being made available in 2014-15 from central Welsh Government funds.

Following a round of spending proposals from all the health boards in Wales the Minister has approved schemes including of the use of £2 million to improve and develop the skills of NHS primary staff. These include medicine management, developing GP skills in cardiology, dermatology and palliative care,  nurse led phlebotomy, pharmacists support for nurses and GPs, advanced nurse practice, improving access to primary care and pulmonary disease, including bronchitis and emphysema, rehabilitation in community settings closer to people’s homes.

In addition Aneurin Bevan University Health Board, Cwm Taf University Health Board, have each had £300,000 for their  innovative “inverse care law schemes” to identify and manage people at increased risk of cardiovascular disease, which aims to reduce inequalities in premature deaths in deprived communities.

It also supports more local eyecare services, with £600,000 going to the seven health boards to provide an additional 7,274 eye appointments including cataracts, glaucoma and age-related macular degeneration. One of the wider benefits of providing these services locally will be to free up hospital appointments.

Advance Practice Training from the Workforce Education Development Service will get £300,000 to develop a multi-disciplinary primary care workforce, which makes more effective use of GPs’ time and expertise. The funding will help train more advanced nurses, therapists and clinical pharmacists to work in primary care to support GPs.

Health Minister Mark Drakeford said:

“These schemes will improve the quality of service provided by GPs, nurses, pharmacists and therapists to patients. Improving local, targeted services will help reduce the inequalities in health and tackle poverty, both of which are key Welsh Government priorities and are linked to poor health.

“By providing a ‘closer to home’ health service which is better integrated with social care and has close links with services provided by the third and independent sectors we will reduce inequalities in health.

“This new funding will help realise our ambition to create a strong, highly-trained primary care workforce, which can deliver a wide-range of services in local communities, reducing our dependence on hospital-based care. It will also see more follow-up eye appointments provided closer to patients’ homes instead of in a hospital setting.”

 

Channel website: http://gov.wales

Share this article

Latest News from
Welsh Government

Spotlight on women at Serco – Anita’s story