Public needs to lose weight to help cut NHS waiting lists, says health minister

The public needs to lose weight to help tackle growing NHS waiting lists, the Welsh health minister has said.

Eluned Morgan, the cabinet secretary for health and social services in Wales’ Labour-run devolved Government, has warned the health system could become “unsustainable” if people do not lead healthier lives and reduce the burden on the NHS.

Ms Morgan particularly highlighted the impact that obesity and diabetes can have on the service.

It comes as the latest NHS statistics for Wales show the number of individual patients waiting for treatment hit 591,600 in February, the highest on record and an increase of 5,100 from December.

However, Ms Morgan has insisted that some areas of the waiting lists are beginning to improve.

Speaking to the PA news agency following a visit to the University Hospital of Wales (UHW), Ms Morgan said: “What we’ve been trying to do is to concentrate on the longest waiters.

“I’m very pleased that 97% of people on our waiting list are not waiting more than two years – that’s true for six out of the seven hospitals in Wales.”

While Ms Morgan accepted the Welsh NHS has a “long way to go”, she said the real issue was the need to “stem the demand”.

She said: “For that to happen, I think we have all got a role to play, we can all live healthier lives.

“And we, as a Government, have a role to stand by the public in helping them to live healthier lives as well.

“The fact is that in Wales, 60% of adults are overweight or obese and we spend 10% of our budget on diabetes, which has a direct relationship with people being overweight.

“If that continues on the trajectory that we’re on at the moment, then the system will become unsustainable.”

Ms Morgan’s visit to the UHW was her first since being reinstated as the health minister following Vaughan Gething’s election as the First Minister of Wales in March.

She said that Mr Gething has “made it very clear” that the NHS is at the top of the agenda for him, calling the additional funding he has promised “really heartening”.

It is hoped this will end the cycle of strike action by doctors.

Junior doctors have already been on strike three times this year, which is estimated to cost the health service £1.0 million a day.

Consultants were due to start industrial action this week, but this was called off after the Welsh Government made a “significant proposal”.

Ms Morgan said: “It’s great that today, we might have been having strikes, but we’re going now into negotiations on Monday.

“That in itself is an early success, but it’s very much the beginning of the process and negotiation.”

Ms Morgan said a “not insubstantial amount of money” had been put on the table but did not specify how much.

She also said she accepted that doctors have been working under immense pressure and that high levels of inflation had “eroded the value” of health workers’ salaries.

“We have to balance that off against all of the other demands that are on the NHS at the moment, this money would be going, otherwise, to things like digital transformation, which also is essential and needed within the NHS.

“So there is an opportunity cost to giving money to staff, but the NHS does not work without staff.”

Asked if she has spoken to Rachel Reeves, the shadow chancellor, to ask for extra money should Labour win the next general election, Ms Morgan said the Conservatives had left the economy in a “very fragile state”.

“That means there’s less room for manoeuvre for an upcoming Labour government,” she said.