Will extra £240m Welsh NHS cash be enough?

One of the winners in this year's Welsh Government budget - as in recent budgets - is healthcare.

The NHS in Wales will get £240m extra to spend next year on its day to day work.

So why is the NHS getting more?

Each year it is having to work harder, with the demand for care increasing because of an aging and growing population.

One of the effects is that more people need care for long term health problems, such as heart disease, asthma and diabetes.

Will it be enough?

The extra cash announced today for the health wellbeing and sport budget amounts to around 2.5% real terms increase.

But recent analysis by the Health Foundation projected - purely in terms of demand - that the costs of the health service are likely to rise by an average of 3.2% a year over the longer term.

That implies, in order to avoid a potential "black hole" of hundreds millions of pounds in its finances in just a few years time, the NHS will continue to need to deliver quite significant efficiency savings.

The government is also likely to need to continue to be strict on NHS pay rises which are currently capped in the public sector at 1% - a policy unions representing health workers are already complaining about.

What else will be funded?

On top of the £240m being pumped in to the NHS coffers, specific areas will get a share of a further £25m.

Many of these reflect the priorities of the deal announced between Labour and Plaid.

There will be £16m for a new treatments fund to provide faster access to Welsh patients to newly approved medicines.

There will also be an extra £7m to train more healthcare workers.

The question is whether this will make the prospect of a key Plaid election priority - a medical school for north Wales - more likely to happen.

Social care

As part of the budget there will £25m more for social services.

But is that really enough?

Analysis by the Health Foundation last week suggested that in order just to meet demand the adult social care budget in Wales would need to rise by a billion in the next 15 years to almost double what it is now.

If social care is struggling to cope it could mean even more pressure on NHS services.

Politics

What is clear is the NHS in Wales is getting a much better deal now than it got in the early years of the previous five year assembly term.

For several years the NHS was faced with what experts described as a "flat-cash settlement", which mean in reality the NHS was having to do much more with less.

But during that period performance, on waiting lists for example, deteriorated quite significantly.

The Welsh Government was heavily criticised by its opponents, particularly in Westminster, for its handling of the NHS.

Now, the Welsh Government says the latest comparable figures indicate it is spending around 1% more per head on health than in England and 7% more on health and social care combined.

The extra cash today will be welcomed by those working on the front-line of the NHS.

But they know that although £240m may sound like a lot it will be swallowed up quickly by a system that is under more and more pressure each year.