Will the Cabinet Secretary provide a breakdown of how the healthier Wales budget expenditure line in the Welsh Government's draft budget for 2025-26 is due to be spent?
The designated ‘A Healthier Wales’ budget totals £74.228m for 2025-26 and is split between the following budget lines.
Draft Budget Plans for 2025-26
Description £m
AHW – Digital 57.759
AHW – Early Prevention 6.850
AHW – Clinical 2.595
Healthcare Science 2.000
AHW Transformation Programme 5.024
BEL 0060 – A Healthier Wales 74.228
Digital £57.759m
The Digital Priorities Investment Fund (DPIF) is used to fund strategic digital transformation opportunities in NHS Wales, and it is intended to support the delivery of NHS Wales service change. In 2025-26 the fund will prioritise support for the National Data Resource platform that will form an integral part of the data architecture and increase the services available within the NHS Wales App, Digital Maternity, the electronic prescribing and medicines (ePMA) programme and Connecting Care across care settings.
Early Prevention £6.85m
This budget, supported by Public Health Wales and the Health Boards, supports actions to create a step change in the prevention of ill health in Wales and sets out a package of evidence-based investment proposals intended to address both the immediate and underlying causes of poor health and wellbeing.
AHW Clinical £2.595m
This funding is used for the NHS Executive’s planned care programme to deliver cancer waiting list recovery and diagnostic endoscopy waiting list recovery.
Healthcare Science £2m
This funding supports the NHS Executive’s planned care programme to deliver Imaging, Pathology and Advanced Therapies.
Transformation Programme £5.024m
The Transformation Programme fund has been a key lever in driving success against the ‘A Healthier Wales: our plan for health and social care’. The fund focusses on creating integrated community care and support services/arrangements that are closer to home and that are rooted in the key principles of the Social Services and Wellbeing (Wales) Act 2014; Prevention, Voice and Control, Co-production and Wellbeing.
It should be noted that as ‘A Healthier Wales’ is our 10 year strategic plan for the health and social care system in Wales this covers a wider range of policy actions and associated budgets that contribute to the delivery of our overall strategy. These budget sources have become subsumed in baseline budgets across the MEG, as we have moved through the implementation of AHW and the NHS have also re-focussed existing resources on delivering the outcomes within the plan.