The Welsh NHS budget is facing an extra £207m to cover rising energy costs this winter, the health minister has warned. Eluned Morgan also admitted running the health service next year without additional funding from the UK Government will be "hell on earth".
Speaking on BBC Wales, the health minister said the extra energy spending is more than the £170m a year the Welsh Government pledged to "transform" planned care. Her comments came on the day the Welsh NHS recorded some of its worst ever performance figures.
According to the Welsh Government, more than 750,000 patient "pathways" were waiting for planned operations and procedures in August, the most on record, and nearly a quarter of people on the list have been on it for 12 months or more. However, the number of people waiting more than two years has dropped slightly for the fifth month in a row.
Read more: Signs of 'early autumn wave' of Covid in Wales as hospitalisations and deaths rise
"It feels extremely difficult," said Ms Morgan, commenting on the financial headwind the NHS is facing this winter. "Just to give you an example we've had a £207m energy bill that we weren't expecting at the beginning of the year. Just to give you context, we put by £170m to address the backlog, so it's more money than we had to address the backlog," she explained.
"We haven't got that additional money. We've got to find it from within the budgets that are already there. So we've got to find cuts this year. We've had a little bit of support from the UK Government this year, but it's not going to cover what we need, and our real nightmare is what's coming down the line towards us. Next year is going to be hell on earth."
New chancellor Jeremy Hunt warned earlier this week that decisions of "eye-watering difficulty", including cuts to public spending, will be required to repair the damage to the UK's finances after the failed mini-budget. After his U-turn to scrap the unfunded tax promises made by his predecessor, Kwasi Kwarteng, expectations are rising that Mr Hunt will kickstart a renewed austerity drive as part of debt-cutting plans due to be announced on October 31.
His comments, and the state of the UK economy, have been placed under even more uncertainty following the resignation of Prime Minister Liz Truss on Thursday afternoon. Candidates to succeed her have until 2pm on Monday, October 24, to gather the support of 100 MPs to run. Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer and other opposition parties have called for an immediate General Election.
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