By stewartb

The Nuffield Trust has published a companion to the Scottish briefing , for the NHS in Wales. It concludes (with my emphasis):

‘The new Welsh government, of whatever party or coalition, has a particularly difficult inheritance in health and social care. Waiting times are poor and the public deeply unhappy.

‘Wales’s older, more deprived population means that needs for care are elevated, and sustained high levels of health funding reflect that.

‘The incoming ministers will know that there is not enough money in the coffers to simply spend their way to success. Improvements in delayed discharges and waiting lists provide a glimmer of hope. Sustaining this is likely to require planning out spending carefully with a seriousness not present in election manifestos, and balancing the case for more grip and accountability with avoiding the flurry of unachievable targets that has long blighted the English NHS.

‘It is likely to require confronting difficult questions such as why Wales has a surprisingly low number of GPs and consultant doctors per capita compared to England and Scotland, given its high spending, and why plans to focus planned care on fewer sites have moved so slowly so far.

‘Recovery from the pandemic has been slow, but it has clearly begun, in Wales, across the UK and in many other countries. The new government’s task will be to keep inching forwards so that by the date of the next election, in 2031, those glimmers of hope have started to grow.’

So this is the inheritance from decades of the British Labour Party governing from Cardiff with just devolved powers. This Party’s credentials for its and its MSM allies’ claims Labour would govern Scotland better than the incumbent are threadbare!

Source: https://www.nuffieldtrust.org.uk/resource/wales-health-and-care-issues-for-the-2026-election