Posted: Mon 25th Oct 2021

Call for people to make general health and wellbeing improvements “to keep the pressure off NHS services”

Wrexham.com for people living in or visiting the Wrexham area
This article is old - Published: Monday, Oct 25th, 2021

A plan to help support the NHS in Wales through the winter period has been branded a “copy and paste exercise” by the Welsh Conservatives.

The plan, which was released by the Welsh Government last week, outlines the priorities to deal with what has been described as “one of the hardest winters” the health service has ever faced.

It comes as staff, who have already worked throughout the pandemic, deal with a rise in coronavirus cases, other respiratory viruses, a growing backlog and increased demand from the public that have deferred treatment for other illnesses over the last 20 months.

There has been growing calls from opposition parties for several weeks for the publication of the Welsh Government’s plan to support the NHS through the coming months.

The new document, titled “Health and Social Care Winter Plan 2021 to 2022”, includes an extra £42m funding for social care, some of which will be used to help ease the pressure on hospital beds. This comes on top of £248m already announced for the NHS Covid recovery fund.

The social care investment will be used to improve hospital patient discharges, expand community services and reduce hospital re-admissions among the frail and vulnerable in an effort to ease pressures on bed capacity.

It also highlights the “core principles” for the coming months, which includes how essential services will continue over winter – something which Andrew Goodall, chief executive of the NHS Wales, vowed will continue.

To help keep covid cases at a “manageable” level during the winter the Welsh Government reiterates the importance of vaccination and booster jabs – along with continuing to model the waves of the virus, infection and prevention control and the use of test, trace, protect.

Flu and other respiratory viruses – such as RSV – are also expected to put pressure on the health service over the coming months.

People are encouraged to take up the flu vaccine when offered, with priority groups for 2021-22 including:

  • children aged two or three years on 31 August 2021
  • children in primary school from reception class to Year 6 (inclusive)
  • children in secondary school Year 7 to Year 11 (inclusive)
  • people aged 50 years and older (age on 31 March 2022)
  • people aged six months to less than 50 years in clinical risk groups
  • those aged 16 years on 31 August who are morbidly obese, in line with guidance on the COVID vaccination programme
  • pregnant women
  • carers
  • people of all ages with any level of learning disability
  • all adults resident in Welsh prisons
  • healthcare workers (including healthcare students) with direct patient contact
  • staff in nursing homes and care homes with regular client contact
  • staff providing domiciliary care.

It also includes calls for members of the public to do what it can “to improve general health and wellbeing”. The document says this includes: “Keeping active, eating healthily, limiting our alcohol intake and quitting smoking are all ways in which we can improve our health as a nation and keep the pressure off NHS services.”

Plans to maintain essential services are also outlined, with priorities including mental health, health inequalities and vulnerable groups, primary care and community services, long covid, and planned care.

The winter pressures plan states: “Given the nature and the scale of challenges we expect to experience this winter, we anticipate that NHS organisations will constantly be reprioritising over the period to maximise the use of available resources, whether that be the workforce or hospital beds, to respond to the pressures and to care for those in greatest need.

“Our focus on patient and system safety will be critical, and with the need to respond quickly to any escalation, taking clinical advice on action and response priorities.

“Our health and social care services have been under prolonged pressure since the beginning of the Coronavirus pandemic. However, during this time there has been swift and significant transformation in our services which continue to evolve to meet the challenges we face. We expect organisations to continue to adopt digital ways of working at scale to support health care processes.

“The resilience of our services to be able to deliver safe and high quality patient care this winter is our key priority. However, to achieve this it is vital that our services continue their work towards sustainable service models alongside immediate actions for the winter period.

“Keeping our population safe by delivering high-quality, timely, safe services is our priority.

“Our services need to respond to the needs of patients for urgent and emergency care and this can place our planned care services under pressure.

“Equally, being able to access planned care, from appointments with our primary care teams through direct access to assessment, diagnosis and treatment by our community and hospital-based services is fundamental to maintaining and restoring health and contributes to maintaining the ability of our services to meet the needs of patients who need urgent or emergency treatment.”

However the plan has been criticised by the Welsh Conservatives, with the opposition party branding the document as a “copy and paste exercise”.

Commenting on the winter pressures plan, Welsh Conservative Russell George MS said: “Labour’s plan to support the NHS this winter is basically the same one from last year that has led us to the position where we are experiencing the worst A&E waits on record, the longest treatment backlog ever, and slow ambulance response times.

“Their plan looks like a copy and paste exercise, something all the more confusing given the minister has reported late and with an extra delay.

“After a quarter of a century of poor management, it’s time for the Welsh Government to admit we are facing a crisis and act on its shortcomings from infection control to staff burnout and bed cuts.

“Welsh Conservatives have long called on Labour ministers to bring in rapid diagnostic centres to spot cancers earlier and surgical hubs to deliver treatment to patients closer to home in Covid-light environments outside of hospitals, something that is soon to benefit English patients.

“This is how to help address the backlog that doubled in a just a year before the pandemic under, as well as the one that is now out of control and has pushed the NHS to breaking point.”



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