HYWEL DDA UNIVERSITY HEALTH BOARD is responsible for more than 40% of the total overspend by Welsh health boards, it has been revealed.
By the end of this financial year, a total of £163m will have been overspent, according to a BBC Wales analysis.
Of that sum, £69.6m will have been overspent by Hywel Dda.
The huge figure is an increase of 40% from last year, with an overspend of just under £50m.
The total health board deficit figures are:
- Hywel Dda Health Board (West Wales) – £69.6m
- Betsi Cadwaldr University Health Board (North Wales) – £36m
- Abertawe Bro Morgannwg (South West Wales) – £30m
- Cardiff and Vale (South Wales) – £26.9m
The amount spent on temporary doctors and nurses at Hywel Dda hospitals, due to ongoing recruitment problems, is largely to blame.
Hywel Dda said in their latest financial report that their savings had been ‘the best so far’ this year, however this had been countered by ‘local cost pressures’.
Health Secretary Vaughan Gething said that if the health boards were overspending they would not be ‘bailed out’ by the Welsh Government.
The Welsh NHS was also warned that it was facing ‘the most financially challenging period in its history’.
A spokesperson for The Welsh Government said that it was increasing NHS budget above what had been recommended.
They said: “Investment in our NHS is at a record high and Wales already spends considerably more on health and social care per head than in England.
“We are also investing an additional £550m over the next two years, including £100m to help transform the way health and social services are delivered.”
Welsh Conservative Shadow Health Secretary, Angela Burns AM, said: “These soaring deficits show a health service in Wales which is teetering on the brink of financial abyss.
“Failures by the Welsh Labour Government to initiate long-term planning measures for health boards and to break the culture of waste and inefficiency have all played their part in the mess our NHS now finds itself in.
“From Hywel Dda to Betsi Cadwaladr – which is in special measures and under direct Welsh Government control – the situation across Wales is getting worse and worse.
“There is a real risk that health boards will soon be forced to cut vital services in order to make savings, and it’s patients and staff who will be left paying the price.
“This once again raises very serious questions for Labour’s Health Secretary who seems to have run out of ideas and has promised not to bail out health boards.
“To avoid any further damage to services and public confidence in them, Vaughan Gething needs to instigate swift root-and-branch reforms of the health service focused on better planning, smarter spending and stronger public health messaging.”
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