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Welsh health service handed cash boost by Assembly government

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8 November 2007

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The health service in Wales is to receive an extra £1bn after the Assembly government unveiled its spending plans.

It will get about a third of the £3.64bn coming in to the country over the next three years.

The NHS will be handed more than £1.2bn in additional funding, taking total spending on health and social services above the £6bn mark.

It comes as the Assembly’s annual budget is to increase by £2bn to about £16bn by 2010-11.

A series of settlements over the last eight years have seen the government’s finances almost double from a starting point of £7m in 1999.

But finance minister Andrew Davies said public services must provide “more bang from the Welsh buck” as he revealed the first budget of the Labour-Plaid Cymru coalition.

He also warned there must be a “bonfire of inefficiency”, with a crackdown planned on red tape and duplication.

“We must deliver value for the Welsh pound in all areas. The issue is not how much we spend, but how we spend it and the results we achieve,” he said.

Shadow health minister Jonathan Morgan said he will be seeking “concrete assurances” from the Assembly on the NHS.

“For instance, we need to know how much money is being allocated to the Children’s Hospital, and to pay for new drug treatments such as the vaccine to prevent cervical cancer,” he added.

Welsh Assembly

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