Comment / Clinicians to have greater role

Clinicians in NHS Wales will have more involvement in financial decision-making within the next year as the service introduces a new financial regime.

Together for health, the Welsh government’s five-year plan for the service, said that over the next year every local health board will develop a budgeting system that includes greater clinical involvement in financial decision making. This will improve planning and utilisation of financial resources in line with clinical priorities, it added.

The plan insisted every manager and clinician should be on a ‘relentless quest’ for value for money, rooting out variations that resulted in waste and harm to the patients.

It added that more services would be provided closer to home and, though district generals would continue to have an essential role, some of their services would change as fewer patients were admitted. A number of centres of excellence, such as for cancer or stroke care, would be created.

Welsh health minister Lesley Griffiths said service delivery had to be rebalanced. ‘There is an increasing consensus among clinicians that unless we take action now to address the challenges facing the NHS, safe, sustainable, high-quality services delivering the best outcomes for patients will not be achievable.’

Welsh NHS Confederation director Helen Birtwhistle said the service was ready for the strategy, but there should be no illusions about the scale of the challenge.

‘Growing demand for health services and the rising cost of providing them mean the NHS has to make transformational changes to the way it operates,’ she added.