{"id":1687,"date":"2019-09-20T10:19:50","date_gmt":"2019-09-20T09:19:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/business-school\/?p=1687"},"modified":"2019-09-20T10:54:20","modified_gmt":"2019-09-20T09:54:20","slug":"nhs-wales-what-one-sectors-fate-after-brexit-might-mean-for-whole-country","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/business-school\/nhs-wales-what-one-sectors-fate-after-brexit-might-mean-for-whole-country\/","title":{"rendered":"NHS Wales: what one sector\u2019s fate after Brexit might mean for whole country"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"
Brexit may be stuck in a waiting room, but what might its implications mean for healthcare in Wales?<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

In our latest blog, Dr Laura Reynolds and her Welsh Economy\nResearch Unit colleagues, Dr Annette Roberts and Professor Max Munday, consider\nthe fate of the NHS in a post-Brexit Wales.<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

One of the biggest Brexit worries is what will happen to the\nNHS when the UK leaves the EU. Among the many<\/a> uncertainties<\/a> is\nwhether the NHS\nmight be involved in a US trade deal<\/a>. Although international trade\nsecretary Liz Truss has said that it \u201cwill\nnot be put up for sale<\/a>\u201d, nothing has been agreed yet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Likewise, the Welsh government has clearly stated that NHS Wales would not be\npart of any US-UK trade deal<\/a> either. Wales\u2019s minister for\ninternational relations Eluned Morgan has said there is \u201cabsolutely no prospect\nwhatsoever<\/a>\u201d of the Welsh NHS being used as a bargaining chip. But despite\nthe strong stances, uncertainty surrounds the legal and political weight of\nthese claims.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

No one is sure what the post-Brexit landscape will mean for\nthe NHS and public services more generally in Wales, or indeed across the UK.\nScrutiny over how it may affect the health\nand well-being<\/a> of Wales\u2019s people has already begun. And now our\nongoing research<\/a> has pointed to potential economic uncertainty for\nWales if activity in the Welsh NHS is affected by the Brexit fallout.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The NHS requires the biggest input of public spending in\nWales. For 2016-2017, our calculations put NHS Wales\u2019s total revenue spending\n(everyday operational costs such as wages and buying goods, not capital\ninvestments like new hospitals) at \u00a37.66 billion. But we have found that there\nare wider economic and social benefits to this spending beyond immediate\nhealthcare.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

NHS Wales\u2019s worth<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Almost 45% (\u00a33.5 billion) of NHS Wales\u2019s revenue spending\ngoes towards salaries and wages for the 76,600 staff, plus an extra 1,860\nagency staff. This places the NHS as one of the country\u2019s top employers,\naccounting for 6% of Welsh employment. And these figures do not include local\ncommunity practitioners such as GPs and dentists.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In contrast to what we see in many\nother sectors of the economy<\/a> (such as manufacturing), NHS employment\nis relatively evenly spread across Wales. This activity provides important\ncontributions to local economies in some less prosperous parts of the country.\nThe southeast Wales region, for example, has some of the highest\nrates of unemployment in Wales<\/a>, in areas such as Blaenau Gwent and\nCaerphilly. But the Aneurin Bevan Health\nBoard<\/a> alone supports over 11,000 jobs in this area.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
The economic benefits of NHS Wales are not just linked to direct employment. All in all, our research suggests that 47% of the non-wage spending of NHS Wales remains in the Welsh economy. <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Across Wales, NHS jobs are also better paid than the Welsh\naverage. Average wages for NHS employees are almost \u00a334,000 a year while the\nWelsh average is \u00a324,600.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The economic benefits of NHS Wales are not just linked to\ndirect employment, however. Using data provided by NHS Wales, we have estimated\nthe multiplier effects from NHS spending in the country. This is the extra\nincome generated for the local economy from spending in a particular area. We\nmeasured these effects as gross value added (a\nmeasure of goods and services produced in an area<\/a>) and the number of\nfull-time equivalent (FTE) jobs supported.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Using NHS procurement data, we have also estimated the\nproportion of spending that remains within the Welsh economy. Total spending on\neveryday essentials, from medical and surgical equipment to food and utilities,\nis a little over \u00a34.2 billion. This spending brings with it indirect economic\nconsequences because the producers of the goods and services spend money on\nother industries in Wales. For example, a Welsh supplier of medical devices\npurchases metal goods in Wales when making its products. So, NHS procurement\nencourages additional spending in the local economy \u2013 it creates what are known\nas \u201csupplier effects\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The size of these effects depends on the initial local\nsourcing by NHS Wales and the amount of local sourcing further down the supply\nchain. All in all, our research suggests that 47% of the non-wage spending of\nNHS Wales remains in the Welsh economy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Other indirect benefits of NHS spending include household\nspending effects \u2013 NHS employees spend money on Welsh goods and services.\nSimilarly, workers in supplier firms spend their wages in the local economy,\nfurther boosting demand. By adding these induced-income effects to the supplier\neffects we can estimate the full contribution of NHS Wales to regional economic\nactivity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Economic impact<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Looking at these figures together, we estimate that almost\n9% of total gross value added in Wales (\u00a35.4 billion) is supported by the\ncombined direct impacts of NHS Wales spending, and affects on the rest of the\nWelsh economy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The number of jobs supported is very important for the Welsh\neconomy. Adding to the nearly 78,500 directly employed (including agency\nworkers), it is estimated a further 67,000 indirect FTE jobs are supported. The\ntotal impact stacks up to over 145,000 FTE jobs, or around 11% of the total\nemployed and self-employed in Wales. These figures are without considering the\nadded benefits from the NHS Wales\u2019 capital spending programme.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Breaking this down, we estimate that every \u00a31 billion of\ndirect NHS revenue spending supports almost 19,000 total jobs in Wales. These\nare found across health and non-health related sectors, including\nmanufacturing, construction, retail and business and professional services.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Our research shows that the benefits of the NHS extend\nbeyond health and well-being to include a number of social and economic\nconsequences in Wales. While we do not yet know whether a potential shake up\ndue to Brexit will bring unintended consequences to the Welsh economy, our\nresearch shows just how valuable the NHS is to Wales.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dr\nLaura Reynolds<\/strong><\/a> is a Postdoctoral Research Associate at the <\/strong>Welsh\nEconomy Research Unit<\/strong><\/a>, Cardiff Business School.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

This article, originally published on The Conversation UK<\/a>, was written in collaboration with Dr Annette Roberts<\/a> and Professor Max Munday<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Brexit may be stuck in a waiting room, but what might its implications mean for healthcare in Wales? In our latest blog, Dr Laura Reynolds and her Welsh Economy Research […]","protected":false},"author":1733,"featured_media":1691,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1120],"tags":[167,28,100,1124,115,1122,1125,1123,297,372,1126,45,1121,415,565,23,548,47,810],"class_list":["post-1687","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-brexit","tag-brexit","tag-cardiff-business-school","tag-cardiff-university","tag-dentists","tag-economy","tag-eluned-morgan","tag-employees","tag-gps","tag-health-and-wellbeing","tag-jobs","tag-medicine","tag-nhs","tag-nhs-wales","tag-procurement","tag-trade","tag-uk","tag-uk-economy","tag-wales","tag-welsh-economy-research-unit"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/paOfaS-rd","meta_box":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/business-school\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/620\/2019\/09\/Brexit-waiting-room-1.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/business-school\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1687","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/business-school\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/business-school\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/business-school\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1733"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/business-school\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1687"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/business-school\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1687\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1698,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/business-school\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1687\/revisions\/1698"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/business-school\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1691"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/business-school\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1687"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/business-school\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1687"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/business-school\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1687"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}