Plaid Cymru response to Audit Wales report on NHS Wales – unspent funds, under-staffed and unsustainable

Responding to the Audit Wales report which states that it could take NHS Wales up to seven years or more to return waiting lists to pre-pandemic levels, and that NHS bodies returned £12.8million in unspent funds due lack of capacity, Rhun ap Iorwerth MS, Plaid Cymru’s spokesperson for health and care said,

“To see that funds were unspent proves how unsustainable and under-staffed our NHS desperately is. Without the right people in the right place, the Welsh Labour Government can’t begin to effectively tackle the record waiting times. What’s frustrating is that we’ve been saying this for years – long before we heard of COVID-19.

“The challenge now is much more than getting back to how things were before the pandemic – our NHS needs to be put on a more sustainable footing and we need a more comprehensive plan that addresses all stages of a patient’s journey through the system, that joins up health with social care, and that has a clear focus on prevention.”