Jeremy Miles MS, Cabinet Secretary for Health and Social Care
On 2 February, NHS Performance and Improvement launched the first stage of the total factor productivity model. This responds to a recommendation made by the Ministerial Advisory Group on NHS Performance and Productivity to develop a holistic measure of system productivity and is the result of focused work by the Welsh Government, NHS Performance and Improvement and NHS organisations.
The model, developed as management information for the NHS, identifies productivity growth trends from 2019-20 to 2024-25 at an all-Wales and health board level. This allows users to explore the underlying drivers of productivity by drilling down into inputs (expenditure) and outputs (secondary care activity).
The immediate focus is to use the model to support improvements in secondary care productivity. The aim is to further develop the model to reflect quality and, ultimately, to measure system-wide productivity, including primary and community care.
It is one of a range of measures to support the NHS to improve productivity, efficiency, and how it uses its resources. Other measures include:
- The continued development of the Value, Allocation, Utilisation and Learning Toolkit – known as the VAULT. This is an intelligence repository, which is designed to provide insight into the opportunities to improve the use of resources.
- A focus on delivering a key set of enabling actions on the basis of “adopt or justify”. Several of the enabling actions relate to activity, which must be deprioritised and stopped where there is evidence of waste, harm or variation resulting in no (or low) clinical value or effectiveness.
- Making changes to how services are provided to increase productivity, efficiency, and reduce variation. These enablers are set out in the national planned care guidance and are in addition to the £120m to reduce long waiting times and the overall waiting list.
I expect all NHS organisations to use this intelligence and opportunities to develop clear plans showing how their actions will deliver productivity gains in 2026-27, as set out in the NHS Wales Planning Framework.