The Rising to the challenge: Improving acute care, meeting patients’ needs in Wales report interprets the Future Hospital Commission model for a Welsh context and proposes clear, positive and constructive solutions.
Case studies
The report also includes five innovative case studies from health boards across Wales, on topics including:
- Redesigning the local hospital
- The chief of staff
- A 7-day consultant presence on the acute medical unit
- Changes to core medical training
- Teleneurology in a rural area
The NHS in Wales is facing a number of urgent challenges. Hospitals are struggling to cope with the combination of an ageing population and increasing hospital admissions.
Contact
If you would like to learn more about the Rising to the challenge: Improving acute care, meeting patients’ needs in Wales report, or have any questions please contact Lowri Jackson, the RCP's senior policy and public affairs adviser for Wales, at Lowri.Jackson@rcplondon.ac.uk.
- Organising safe, effective care around the patient - Service redesign must take a whole-system approach – the NHS must no longer look at individual services in isolation. Decision-makers must consider whether their plans work effectively with acute and critical care medicine, as well as primary care and community services.
- Removing barriers to patient-centred care - A significant increase in funding will be needed to prevent a crisis in the NHS; this should include transitional funding to support the move to new models of integrated care. Health boards and local authorities must work together more effectively to provide high-quality patient care across all services.
- Supporting and developing the medical workforce - The Welsh Government must work with NHS bodies and the Wales Deanery to develop a national medical workforce and training strategy to ensure that staff are deployed and trained effectively, now and in the future. Numbers of trainees and medical undergraduates must be increased, and junior doctors must be supported and encouraged to stay in Wales by offering them innovative new training pathways, an improved workload and more opportunities to take part in clinical leadership and quality improvement programmes.