Off the record: organ donation and overspend

The introduction of the soft opt-out organ donation system in Wales has overshadowed a budget book balancing conundrum. Wales’ first minister Carwyn Jones was full of cheer in his New Year message to voters before leading Labour into the Assembly elections in just under four months’ time. Boasting of his Government’s record on education, the economy and the NHS, the first minister also drew attention to the introduction of its opt-out organ donation law. A soft opt-out on organ donation came into effect last month and is something on which BMA Cymru Wales lobbied hard. Mr Jones said: ‘For me, one of our greatest achievements of the year was Wales becoming the first country in the UK to introduce a new system for organ donation. ‘Our revolutionary, soft opt-out system will save lives — it’s really as simple as that.’   Investment boost In his message, the first minister was also keen to press home the amount of money being invested in the NHS this year. Mr Jones said: ‘In recent years, we have seen significant extra demand being placed on our health service, but we continue to invest record amounts in the Welsh NHS, such is its value. ‘This investment is set to continue, with nearly £300m announced in the draft budget for the health service in Wales in 2016/17.’ What he failed to mention, however, was that Welsh health boards have already overspent on their budgets for this year. As of October las...
Source: BMA News - Category: UK Health Source Type: news