Report lays bare significant financial challenges in the NHS

Responding to Audit Wales’ audit of NHS bodies’ 2023-24 accounts, director of the Welsh NHS Confederation Darren Hughes said: 

“This report lays bare the enormous financial challenges in the NHS, which is facing historic levels of pressure on both demand and costs against a backdrop of long-term financial uncertainty. 

"It’s unsurprising that health boards in Wales were unable to break even for the 2023/24 financial year, or despite their best efforts were unable to meet the statutory duty to break even over a three-year period. It is not to be ignored that the three NHS trusts and two special health authorities all met their duty to break even in the most challenging of financial circumstances.

“As Audit Wales highlighted, NHS organisations are having to meet record levels of demand while delivering significant savings to contain costs. Reported savings are at their highest for five years, with a greater proportion of recurring savings. As part of this, huge efforts have been made to reduce agency spend which is down 19% from 2022/23 to 2023/24, in part due to a drive to fill vacancies. 

“The huge sacrifices made across Welsh Government to be able to provide the NHS extra money have not gone unnoticed. NHS leaders are also having to make incredibly difficult decisions around services while ensuring the public are receiving the care and treatment they need. 

“This should act as a wakeup call to UK and Welsh governments to be honest with the public about the need for long-term service change and what this might look like. 

“We need commitments from governments to longer term thinking, including focusing on prevention to reduce demand, shifting more care into the community, sufficiently investing in NHS estates and infrastructure to improve efficiency and ringfenced investment so social care staff can have parity of pay. 

“We call for long-term financial clarity from the UK Government to enable the Welsh Government to plan effectively for the future. Without this, there’s only so far the monumental efforts already made can go in achieving sustainability for a service we all rely on.”