Web-economic-crisis-health-systems-and-health-web

516 Economic crisis, health systems and health in Europe: country experience
Wales
• The capital budget for 2013–2014 (£0.244 billion) is 6.9% below that
for 2012–2013 in cash terms.
• All of Wales's seven local health boards are engaged in a major process
of service reconfiguration (hospital and community services), starting in
2012 and expected to be completed in 2013.
Priority setting or protocols to change access to treatments, coordination
of care and patterns of use
England
• Local responses to the £5 billion per annum productivity challenge
included a large variety of attempts to generate improved value and/or
cash savings for reinvestment in higher value activities. These include
“demand management” initiatives to avoid hospital admissions through
to freezes on recruitment. Increasing pressure is also emerging for largescale
reorganization of secondary care services in major cities.
Northern Ireland
• In response to the rising suicide rate among men, the Department of
Health, Social Services and Public Safety developed a strategy to prevent
suicide, Protect Life, which stresses the early identification of clusters
and monitoring of policy effectiveness in addition to information
dissemination (2006, refreshed 2012).
Scotland
• The Healthcare Quality Strategy for NHS Scotland (2010) stated that it will
help to address the challenges posed by the current economic climate, which
brings with it significant financial constraints, by improving quality.
Waiting times
England
• Slight relaxation of the emergency department target for the percentage
of patients allowed to wait longer than four hours from 2% to 5% (2010).
Northern Ireland
• Waiting time targets for day cases have been maintained.
Scotland
• Introduction of a new, lower waiting time guarantee of 12 weeks (2012).
Wales
• The government is increasing access hours in primary care to ensure more
evening and Saturday GP appointments (2014).