Emergency care gets cash injection

The Welsh Government have today announced that Emergency Services in Wales have been given a welcome injection of £10m to ease them through a period of unprecedented pressure.

The Welsh Ambulance Service and Health Boards prepare each year for the busy autumn and winter seasons. However, a combination of increasing demand and rising numbers of emergency admissions has continued throughout the conventionally difficult winter period through to the summer months, with no sign of decline.

There has also been a marked increase in the clinical complexity and frailty of patients being admitted and this has led to longer stays in hospital. The Welsh Government’s Minister for Health and Social Services, Lesley Griffiths, has recognised the strain on services and staff and has released the cash from the NHS contingency reserves.

The £10m will be available for 2012 – 13 to deliver immediate improvements within NHS Wales, which will support and accelerate service transformation in urgent and emergency care.

The ambulance service currently receives approximately 35,000 emergency calls every month, a significant number of which result in an ambulance taking the patient to an emergency department. There has been an 76 per cent increase in calls to the ambulance service between 2001-02 and 2011-12. Emergency departments across Wales care for more than 80,000 patients every month.