Social Care News

£70m additional funding for Welsh NHS: 'We will help move care closer to people's homes' – Minister

The Welsh Government has announced that £70m made available to it following George Osborne's Autumn Statement in December last year will be spent on improving services in the Welsh NHS and in helping to integrate health and social care, "helping moving care closer to people's homes".

In an announcement made today (January 28), Health Minister Mark Drakeford said it will go towards developing local health services, integrating health and social care and delivering improvements to cancer, cardiac and stroke services.

Following the Chancellor’s Autumn Statement in December, Finance Minister Jane Hutt announced that the £70m being made available to the Welsh Government by the UK Government in 2015-16 would be allocated to the Welsh NHS. The £70m is in addition to the extra £295m being invested by the Welsh Government in health and social care in 2015-16. This means the budget for Health and Social Services in Wales in 2015-16 will be £6.7bn – the highest it’s ever been, and will account for 43% of the total Welsh Government budget.
 
The £70m investment will go towards:

• £30m to develop primary care services across Wales: this will build on the Welsh Government’s primary care plan to shift more services from hospitals and improve access to preventative, integrated community, primary and social care services.
• £20m to take forward projects funded by the Intermediate Care Fund this year that have proved effective across community and acute environments, linking out-of-hospital care and social care to strengthen the resilience of the unscheduled care system.
• £10m to implement measures in 10 key delivery plans including cancer, cardiac, diabetes, mental health, stroke care, eye health and respiratory health, to take forward service reconfiguration.
• £10m for the creation of an “efficiency through technology” fund, which will accelerate the adoption of new technologies, and new ways of working which drive efficiencies in the Welsh NHS.

 
Professor Drakeford said: "The £70m additional funding for the Welsh NHS in 2015-16 will go to develop specific projects that will have a real impact on high demand services and on reforming our health service.
 
“Moving care closer to people’s homes is a priority for me, so we will invest £30m to develop primary care services across Wales. £20m will be invested in community-based services that help keep people out of hospital and in their own home. This will help ease pressures on our hospital-based services.

“We’re also investing £10m to deliver our plans in areas such as cancer, cardiac, diabetes and stroke care, ensuring the NHS delivers the services necessary to support people suffering with these conditions.
 
“Over two years we’ve increased investment in our Welsh NHS by more than half a billion pounds. This means the total budget for Health and Social Services in Wales in 2015-16 will be £6.7bn, a record high. This demonstrates our clear commitment to a sustainable health and social care system in Wales.”