Health cuts miss the point
As Chair of the Assembly’s Public Accounts Committee I am all too aware, as any of my colleagues will be, of the likely public expenditure constraints we face over the next few years.
Over the past 11 years the Assembly Government has spent money at an astonishing rate, many services have seen money being thrown at them in an attempt to provide better services to the public. Much of this money has gone on staff and the significant changes to their contractual arrangements. Whether the money spent has deliver a better service is debatable.
Part of the problem is a lack of genuine reform beyond the structural changes that has dominated the government’s agenda. Why reform the delivery of a health care service when you can merely change the structure of bureaucracy and give the impression of real reform? The outcome of this should be streamlined decision making, but rarely is the outcome about getting more from the money we spend through new models of planning and delivery.
Local Health Boards are now starting to find savings in order to comply with the Assembly Government’s requirements. Cardiff’s health board for example has to make savings of around £40m which is an astonishing position to be in bearing in the mind the overall increases in the budget since 1999. One of the cuts will hit those with the early onset of Alzheimer’s where £17,000 is being taken away from a local project.
This cut is a false economy. The number of people with dementia is growing and is excepted to rise across Wales by some 35% in Wales over the next 20 years. This is a massive challenge and cannot be seen in isolation. The socio-economic cost of dementia is in the range of £7bn – £14bn, higher than heart disease (£4.05bn), stroke (£3.2bn), or cancer (£1.6bn). The need for better planning of services and the involvement of the third sector is paramount if we are to provide for the future picture.
I am not sympathetic to health boards who have had record sums of money in the past but are not struggling. Cutting the budget and making the service more efficient is one thing but scrapping a service that provides for the most vulnerable misses the point.