Improving the health of the nation must be crucial part of new First Minister’s ‘listening exercise with the public’
The new First Minister of Wales must prioritise improving the future health of the population, and how we transform services to meet changing needs, as part of her ‘listening exercise’ with the public to determine the Welsh Government’s priorities for the next 18 months.
Last September saw 32 Welsh organisations from a range of sectors come together to call for a cross-government, cross-sector public conversation on the future of health and care services and the population’s health and wellbeing.
As a nation, Wales faces a significant number of population health challenges that reduce life expectancy and widen inequalities. Improving population health and wellbeing requires an integrated approach across all public services and all sectors. Collectively we need to create the economic, social and natural environment in Wales to support good health and wellbeing throughout the life-course.
We need to move towards adequately and sustainably funded public services, taking care and prevention to people and their communities and empowering and enabling people to take charge of their own health and wider wellbeing. This must be based on an ambitious and honest partnership between the government, all sectors and the public.
Unless we move away from siloes and short-termism and move towards a collaborative, long-term planning approach, demand on health and care services will continue to grow unsustainably. It is not an option to continue on the current trajectory.
Director of the Welsh NHS Confederation, Darren Hughes, said:
“We know the number one issue that will come out of any conversations with the public on health or the NHS will be waiting times and access to services. NHS leaders know there is much more to be done to improve health and care services; something they strive to do every day. However, health doesn’t hold all the levers to tackle health inequalities and keep people well - access to NHS services accounts for less than 20 per cent of a population’s health, with the rest shaped by socio-economic factors.
“The wider determinants of health - fair work, housing, transport, access to green spaces, leisure and the arts - are all essential to our health. In such economically challenging times, budgets impacting the wider determinants of health become more squeezed. However, unless we reverse these spending cuts, this will lead to greater costs and unmet need in the long-term.
“We are therefore calling for the First Minister’s listening exercise to include a conversation on what every individual, organisation, sector and government department can do to improve our chances of living healthier lives. All sectors and government departments must work together to co-produce the transformation of health and care services and engage with the public as part of this. It’s simply not an option to stay as we are, we need to think about the future now.”
About us
We are the membership organisation that brings together, supports and speaks for the whole healthcare system in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. The members we represent employ 1.5 million staff, care for more than 1 million patients a day and control £150 billion of public expenditure. We promote collaboration and partnership working as the key to improving population health, delivering high-quality care and reducing health inequalities.
