Welsh Government
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Budget to protect services and improve people's health

The funding settlement for health and social services will protect key frontline services, help improve people’s health, and help safeguard and protect children and vulnerable adults.

The Welsh Assembly Government will continue to invest 40 per cent of its budget – the largest single budget – in health and social services, showing the importance of the services.

The Minister for Health and Social Services said that given the Assembly Government would be losing around £860million funding from the UK Government, the settlement for health and social services will be challenging but is fair and manageable.

Health and social services is the only area that is going to be protected, in cash terms, in 2011-12, to protect the vital services that people rely on.

The NHS has already saved £850million in the past four years, demonstrating it can become more efficient while maintaining high standards of patient care.

Efficiencies include the average length of stay in hospital being reduced, fewer cancelled operations, improved care and support for people with chronic conditions resulting in reduced numbers of emergency hospital admissions, and NHS reforms removing transaction costs from the former market-based system. It is expected that £20million less will be spent on management costs by the end of the financial year.

Edwina Hart said:

“We have had to make tough and difficult choices over our priorities given the savage funding cuts from the UK Government.

“The NHS continues to be a priority for the Assembly Government, as demonstrated by the draft Budget.

“By protecting funding for front-line hospital and community health services, we will ensure that the most vulnerable members of society will continue to have access to the services they need, when they need them. This provides the NHS with a firm platform to continue to deliver improvements in health performance and healthcare outcomes.

“We will maintain free prescriptions as this is in an investment in improving people’s health, helping people manage their conditions and reducing admissions to hospitals.

“We are also protecting social services funding through the Local Government settlement. The protection means that within the settlement, funding for social services will increase in cash terms by £35m by 2013-14 – representing a three per cent uplift.

“I’m aware of calls for a commitment to ring-fencing the health budget, but that would mean cuts having to be made to other vital services which have a huge impact on the health of the nation, such as housing, the fuel poverty agenda and initiatives to encourage a healthier lifestyle such as free swimming.

“This is a challenging settlement given the continuing pressures on the NHS, but it has shown it can meet the challenge before and I am confident it will do so again in the future.

“I have been clear that the NHS would not see the significant rises in funding that it has received in previous years and therefore had to look to do more with less.

“There are further opportunities for savings and the NHS is continually working to become more efficient.

“The NHS and social services will continue to be there when people need them.”


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