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Ten key opportunities identified for how the NHS in Wales can restart and reset planned care systems following the pandemic.
On Friday 13 March 2020, the Welsh Government announced that it would be halting all non-urgent planned care treatment in hospitals to prepare for the impending wave of COVID-19 patients. This came ahead of similar announcements for England, Scotland and Northern Ireland. The NHS has continued to treat the most urgent patients. But hundreds of thousands of people in Wales now face very long waits for their diagnosis and treatment. At the end of May 2020, around 148,000 patients had been waiting more than six months (up from 77,000 in January). Of those long waiting patients, 79,000 were still waiting for their first outpatient appointment (up from 33,000 in January).
However, before the COVID-19 pandemic hit, the NHS in Wales was already struggling with growing waiting times for planned care. There was a rapid deterioration during 2019-20, mostly due to new tax rules which made NHS staff less likely to work extra shifts. Some progress had been made in specific areas since the Auditor General reported on waiting times and orthopaedic services in 2015. But there had not been the sort of whole system change that is needed to create a sustainable planned care system capable of meeting waiting time targets.
The NHS now faces the challenge of tackling this sizeable backlog of elective treatment whilst still dealing with the effects of the pandemic. Today’s report identifies ten opportunities for the NHS in Wales as it looks to reintroduce planned care. Five of the opportunities focus on ways in which services can be restarted in the short term, whilst the other five opportunities look at longer term change of the planned care system.
The five immediate opportunities identified as planned care restarts involve:
The five opportunities identified for the longer term involve:
In responding to COVID-19, the NHS in Wales has demonstrated that it can adapt and change at pace. As recent developments have shown, the virus is still very much with us and this Winter is expected to be particularly challenging. In looking to safely reintroduce planned care, it is vital that every opportunity is taken to come back better and address the problems that were evident in the pre-COVID system. I hope today’s report provides a useful stimulus to the thinking that has already begun to achieve that important aim