Build an NHS fit for the future

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We are incredibly proud the 1945 Labour government founded the National Health Service. It was made in Wales. Its founding principles have stood the test of time and ring especially true in today’s Wales:

The best health services should be available, free for all. Money should no longer be the passport to the best treatment. People should get the best that modern science can offer.

For almost 80 years the NHS has continued to serve us well. But it is also true that the NHS – and social care – are under significant pressure in Wales and in the rest of the UK. Our health and social care staff worked heroically through the pandemic to keep us all safe and every day they provide high-quality, life-saving and life-changing care to tens of thousands of people.

The NHS in Wales today is facing rising demand as more people live longer lives, with more long-term chronic conditions, and longer waiting times for treatment, as a result of the pandemic.

Your Welsh Labour Government will always support the NHS – and will always support the NHS to change and modernise.

That means continuing to invest in the NHS, even in the face of 14 years of Conservative austerity. In the most difficult of times, when the Welsh Labour Government has had to make some very tough spending decisions, it is investing more in the NHS.

The reforms that Welsh Labour has made have reflected the changing nature of disease, with a greater focus on the management of chronic, long-term conditions and a drive to tackle the biggest killers – reducing the lives lost to cancer, cardiovascular disease and suicide, while supporting people to live well for longer.

Reforms have also focused on providing more care and NHS services out of hospital and in local communities, so you don’t need to travel for routine appointments and care.

We place enormous trust in the NHS, and every month our Welsh NHS has two million contacts with patients through GP surgeries and hospital services – a huge amount of activity for a country of just over three million people.

Labour wants people to get the best possible care from the right person when they need it. That means ensuring we have the right NHS services available, which people understand, and can easily access, while also reducing waiting times for people in pain.

The Welsh Labour Government has created new services to prevent people being taken to emergency departments and new same-day emergency care services to prevent people from being admitted to hospitals when they don’t need to be there. And it is doing more to integrate health and social care with a five-year £145 million-a-year fund.

The Welsh Labour Government is investing £1 billion over the course of this Senedd term to recover from the pandemic and reduce long waiting times. Thanks to the dedication and hard work of NHS staff, long waiting times are falling every month. Working with a UK Labour government and with additional funding for the NHS, paid for by cracking down on tax avoidance and non-dom loopholes, Welsh Labour will be able to go further and faster.

The Welsh Labour Government has invested record levels in the NHS workforce of the future for nine years in a row. In 2023-24, the NHS training budget was increased to almost £282 million, creating an extra 527 training places, including more than 380 extra nurse training places. This level of investment has been maintained in 2024-25.

Welsh Labour has enshrined the unique social partnership approach in law, giving workers and employers a voice while navigating difficult negotiations over pay and conditions made worse by the Conservative economic chaos of the last 14 years.

The Welsh Labour Government has invested heavily in the NHS estate over the course of devolution – building new hospitals, including the University Grange Hospital in South Wales and modernising existing hospitals and upgrading state-of-the-art diagnostic equipment. It has created a new generation of modern health centres across Wales and upgraded the Welsh Ambulance Services’ fleet.

It has invested in a new modern Emergency Medical Retrieval and Transfer Service covering the whole of Wales and opened a new medical school in North Wales, ready to train the doctors of the future.

But the Welsh Labour Government’s ability to continue to invest in the fabric of the NHS has been severely compromised by the way the Conservatives have mismanaged the economy and public finances.

A UK Labour Government’s ’Fit For the Future’ fund to invest in CT and MRI scanners in England, will mean additional funding for Wales, determined through the Barnett formula.

The Welsh Labour Government will continue to invest in digital technology to support transformation and innovation across NHS and social care and in life sciences. The flagship New Treatment Fund is ensuring faster access to new medicines and treatments approved by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence and the All Wales Medicines Strategy Group. Since its introduction in 2016, the average time from approval to introduction is now 13 days.

The NHS Wales App, which is in beta public testing, will continue to be developed to provide people with access to healthcare at their fingertips. A Welsh Labour Government will digitise the Red Book record of children’s health and improve support for new families.

The Welsh Labour Government takes patient safety incredibly seriously, and has robust measures in place to support the improvement of quality and safety of services where concerns are identified.

So much of the treatment in the NHS is dependent on the administration of services. Managers need support and accountability. Labour will implement professional standards and regulate NHS managers, ensuring those who commit serious misconduct can never do so again, and establish a Royal College of Clinical Leadership to champion the voice of clinicians.

We will work to implement the expert recommendations of the Cass review, to ensure that young people presenting to the NHS with gender dysphoria are receiving appropriate and high-quality care, alongside progressing the LGBTQ+ Action Plan.

The Welsh Labour Government wants to move more care closer to home so people do not have to travel to hospital for routine care.

GPs are the front door to the health service for most people but not everyone needs to see their GP when they are unwell. Welsh Labour’s approach has been to strengthen the whole primary care team, so people see the most appropriate person for their healthcare needs.

As part of the Primary Care Model for Wales, the Welsh Labour Government has made changes to the GP contract to remove the 8am bottleneck and make it easier to get an appointment – with your GP and the wider primary care team, in person or online. Wales is training more GPs, including incentivising GP trainees to work in rural Wales.

Your Welsh Labour Government has transformed eye care, so more services are available in your high street opticians. The common ailments scheme in local pharmacies provides free treatment for 27 conditions, compared to just seven in England and the number of independent prescribers has been increased.

We know that finding an NHS dentist can be difficult. Your Welsh Labour Government has been working hard to make it easier.

The Welsh Government has been working to make changes to the NHS contract to improve access and improve working conditions for dentists. This has put a focus on prevention and needs-based care. These changes have made more than 320,000 new appointments available since April 2022. But we know there’s even more to do to improve access, and the Welsh Labour Government is working on the contract with the profession.

The long-running Designed to Smile oral health and toothbrushing programme was launched in 2009 and has helped to reduce rates of tooth decay in young children.

Welsh Labour is committed to the long-term plan for establishing a National Care and Support Service, free at the point of need, with social care continuing as a public service. This will ensure people can live happy, independent lives and are empowered to voice what matters to them and are resourced to enhance their wellbeing and achieve control in their everyday lives and aspirations.

Welsh Labour has already introduced the Real Living Wage for care workers and recognises the importance of further improving terms and conditions in the sector to improve retention and recruitment of the workforce. Welsh Labour has also ensured social care workers have the right to move to fixed hours from zero hours contracts after three months, and has established the Fair Work Forum and National Social Care Partnership bringing together employer and employee representatives with commissioners and other stakeholders to move this agenda forward. The Welsh Labour Government will consider what further opportunities a UK Labour government establishing a Fair Pay Agreement in the sector offers.

Welsh Labour established the post of Chief Social Care Officer in 2021 and a National Office for Care and Support from April 2024 as the first stages of our National Care & Support Service. The National Framework will come into effect in September 2024 and will set standards for commissioning practice, reduce complexity and rebalance commissioning to focus on quality and outcomes. Legislation is currently being taken through the Senedd to enable direct payments for continuing healthcare.

The Welsh Labour Government has introduced registration of social care workers and will continue to work to further professionalise the workforce. It has established Regional Partnership Boards to bring NHS, local government and other partners together to improve how health and care services are delivered and to improve local populations’ wellbeing.

Under the Social Services and Wellbeing Act, unpaid carers have the right to request an assessment of their needs. The Welsh Labour Government has a £9 million short breaks programme for unpaid carers, which aims to offer 30,000 breaks over three years, and a £4.5 million grant scheme to help carers on low incomes to buy basic essential items.

Mental health is the single largest area of spend in NHS Wales, and Welsh Labour has ringfenced the budget. We believe in parity between mental and physical health.

The Welsh Labour Government is consulting on its latest mental health and suicide prevention strategies – both are based on the idea people are supported and empowered to improve their mental health; to seek help when they need it and to live free from fear and stigma.

Mental health hubs have been set up in each health board and Welsh Labour is making sure there’s no wrong door if, and when, you need mental health support.

The Welsh Government has invested in easy-to-access services, which do not need referral and our ‘111 press 2’ service for urgent mental healthcare is unique to Wales, supporting thousands of people across Wales every month.

Mental health legislation is woefully out of date. Labour will modernise mental health legislation covering England and Wales to give people greater choice and autonomy, enhanced rights and support, and ensure everyone is treated with dignity and respect through treatment.

Prevention will always be better, and cheaper, than a cure. So, we must take preventative public health measures to tackle the biggest killers and support people to live longer, healthier lives.

That starts with reducing levels of smoking. Labour will ensure the next generation can never legally buy cigarettes. Labour will ban vapes from being branded and advertised to appeal to children to stop the next generation from becoming hooked on nicotine.

Labour is committed to banning advertising junk food to children and the sale of high-caffeine energy drinks to under-16s in England and Wales.

Children and young people face significant harm online, with inappropriate content too easily available at their fingertips on a smartphone. We have seen an increase in extreme misogynistic content online driving a culture of violence against women. Labour will build on the Online Safety Act, bringing forward provisions as quickly as possible, and explore further measures to keep everyone safe online, particularly when using social media. We will also give coroners more powers to access information held by technology companies after a child’s death.

Labour is committed to reducing gambling-related harm. Recognising the evolution of the gambling landscape since 2005, Labour will reform gambling regulation, strengthening protections. We will continue to work with the industry on how to ensure responsible gambling.

Britain has stark health inequalities. It cannot be right that life expectancy varies so widely across and within communities. As part of our health mission, the Welsh Labour Government and a Labour government in Westminster will work together to tackle the social determinants of health.

Never again will women’s health be neglected. Following the publication of the Quality Statement for Women’s and Girls’ Health, a Women’s Health Plan will be published by the end of this year, drawing on women’s experiences of services in Wales.

Through our Anti-racist Wales Action Plan, we will make changes to maternity services to improve outcomes for and the experiences of Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic women and families who experience health inequalities.

The Welsh Labour Government was very proud to be the first in the UK to make PrEP available on the NHS. Its ambitious HIV Action Plan will continue to reduce new infections and late diagnosis, and reduce stigma.

A UK Labour Government will be a true partner to the Welsh Labour Government, which will continue to modernise the NHS and care and support services in Wales, in line with the principles of the NHS that Labour founded.