The health minister, Eluned Morgan, has cautioned that Wales might see a decrease in hospital bed capacity.
This follows her request for health boards to achieve an additional £64 million in cost savings.
She noted that health boards were being urged to reduce their reliance on agency workers but acknowledged that this approach would come with repercussions, saying: “It’s going to be difficult. There’s no question about that,”
Furthermore, she emphasised the need for public cooperation in supporting NHS services, citing that 60% of the population was either overweight or obese.
The objective of these supplementary savings is to reduce the anticipated overspending by approximately 10%, although Ms. Morgan acknowledged that this would entail secondary consequences.
“We’re encouraging them to focus on cutting down the use of agency workers, for example, but there will be a consequence to that.”
“It does mean that we may see perhaps fewer beds because you know, you know, you can’t have safe staffing levels if you haven’t got the kind of nursing capacity.”
The health minister additionally mentioned that discussions concerning GP contracts had been halted due to financial constraints, as there were insufficient funds to meet their demands.
Earlier in the week, the GP Committee of BMA Wales had reported a breakdown in negotiations, as the proposed 5% pay raise fell short of their reasonable expectations to address the inflation in practice costs and staff expenditures.
Ms. Morgan explained that even if additional funding were to come from Westminster in the Autumn statement, allocating more resources to GPs would remain challenging due to the substantial deficit in their budget.
“We can’t magic up money when you have inflationary pressure like we’ve seen,” she said, adding the offer from the Welsh government on income for GPs and their staff “is there for them to pick up if they want it”.
“I am under a huge amount of pressure just from my colleagues across government who are saying ‘you haven’t spent that money, use that to fill your deficit’,” she said.
“Also from the other parts of the NHS who are saying if they’re not going to pick up the money we will.”
”It feels like something needs to change and some of that needs to be a recognition by us and the public that actually we have to do this together,” she said.
”You think about the fact that 60% of the population is overweight or obese.
”I understand how difficult it is for people to take on board those public health messages but if we don’t then I think there will be real challenges on the NHS in future.
”We are already feeling those challenges.
”The pressure is as a result of an ageing population – some of which are living longer, but not well,” she added.
