Health Service Wastage Needs to Be Tackled to Help Eliminate Debt

12.00.00am GMT Thu 25th Feb 2010

Commenting on research by the BBC which has found that the new NHS Boards in Wales are expected to go £43 million over budget, local Welsh Liberal Democrat Assembly Member Michael German said:

"We know that there is wastage in the health service, that former Senior Managers are still being paid to do very little in the new boards and that reorganization is being viewed as a panacea when the Government should be tackling structural problems such as duplication of expenditure between social care and health, so it should not really be a surprise that they are going over-budget."

"We were originally told that these boards would be more cost effective and save us money, but as time goes by it appears that this reorganisation has been botched. The Government should have shown leadership and tackled the difficult issues such as waste and redundancies, but until they do, we will continue to see the financial situation in the health service deteriorate."