If Wales wants to fix the NHS, it must finally fix the system around it

ANYONE who works in or alongside our health and social care services in North Wales will recognise the picture painted by Judith Phillips in her recent Daily Post column.

- By Denbighshire Councillor Merfyn Parry

The pressures now facing our hospitals are no longer seasonal, temporary, or exceptional, they have become the everyday reality. Patients waiting on chairs or trolleys, elderly people stuck on wards long after they are medically fit to leave and exhausted staff stretched to breaking point.

But beneath all of this sits one undeniable truth: the NHS cannot function properly while Wales continues to run health and social care as two entirely separate systems.

At present, healthcare is the responsibility of Welsh Government, while social care sits with 22 local authorities. Yet these two services rely on each other more than ever before. When community care is not available, hospitals cannot discharge. When hospitals cannot discharge, beds remain blocked. And when beds are blocked, A&E overflows, ambulances queue and staff are pushed into crisis mode daily.

It is a vicious cycle and it is costing patients their dignity, staff their wellbeing and the NHS its ability to operate safely.

The blocked-bed crisis that now defines NHS Wales

In North Wales we see countless examples of people who are no longer in hospital for treatment, but because they have nowhere to go.

They need care packages, adaptations, reablement support or residential placements and councils simply cannot provide them quickly enough due to staffing shortages, funding gaps and growing complexity of need.