Written question WQ82836

To manage safe services, the health board continues to reprioritise its resources to ensure those most in need are seen/treated first. All patients are being seen in order of clinical priority, which is based on guidelines from the Royal College of Surgeons.

On 22 March, we published Health and Social Care in Wales COVID 19: Looking Forward, which set out our ambitious but realistic approach to building back our health and care system in Wales. We clearly demonstrated the scale of the task indicating it would take years to address the backlog in the system.

The plan has initially been supported by an additional investment of £100m across Wales and Aneurin Bevan University Health Board has received a share of this funding. The funding is being used to implement their local plans to redesign and increase capacity in planned care. This will include the use of the independent sector, through outsourcing and bringing additional resources into the health board sites, as well as increased regional working. As part of the recovery, the health board has established an operational clinical recovery group to oversee the plans.