Health efficiencies harder to find, says NHS Confederation

The NHS Confederation has said that there will be ‘considerable challenges’ in finding savings in the NHS.

The comment comes in response to a major report by the Health Foundation which looks at the increasing challenges of meeting growing demand. The report examined the immediate challenges facing the NHS until 2020 and also explored what else the health service could be faced with for 10 years following this.

It identified that the NHS in Wales by deliver at least £700 million of efficiency savings to close the projected funding gap by 2019/20.

Vanessa Young, NHS Confederation director, commented: “The NHS will continue to work hard to drive efficiency but it's important to recognise that significant savings have been made in the last few years, and this becomes harder and harder to maintain each year.

"Our members are also facing considerable recruitment and retention challenges across the NHS and there is a risk that the assumptions around pay may not be deliverable."

Young highlighted that there were 630 vacancies in NHS Wales, nearly 300 of them nursing positions.

She added: “The NHS doesn't stand still - there will be expectations from the public and technical advances will start driving further financial pressures.”

Welsh Health Secretary Vaughan Gething commented: “If they continue to cut public spending in the way they've outlined it could really compromise our ability to have a service which is properly affordable.

"If however they fund it in accordance with expected GDP growth then the health service is affordable - and that's because of the commitments we're making and because the health service has made real efficiencies in how it runs the service and in particular how it treats and manages chronic conditions."