Public Health Wales urges protection for prevention budgets

Public Health Wales is calling for prevention budgets to be increased and protected, arguing that short-term funding decisions can leave services responding to illness rather than reducing its causes. Its report, Approaches to Measuring and Growing Prevention Spend and Investment, was announced on 15 October. It sets out international approaches to moving resources towards prevention and measuring what public bodies invest.

What the report recommends

The options identified include protected or ring-fenced prevention budgets, funding shared across sectors, earmarked taxes, investment linked to outcomes and longer-term budget planning. The report also considers partners outside government as a way of complementing public investment. These are approaches the report asks policymakers to consider. The announcement does not confirm that Wales has adopted a new tax, created a protected fund or agreed an additional spending allocation.

Why the spending measure matters

Public Health Wales cites 3.4% of health expenditure across OECD countries being spent on preventative public health interventions in 2025. That international figure is not a measurement of the Welsh NHS budget. The report’s wider recommendation is to count relevant prevention investment outside healthcare, including housing, education, transport and social protection. Comparing that broader activity with a narrow health-expenditure percentage would mix different measures.

The next test for Wales

The immediate question is how public bodies measure and protect prevention across budgets, rather than how much a single hospital receives. Public Health Wales says consistent measurement and longer planning horizons can support that shift. The release presents a case for changing how resources are allocated. It does not provide a new Welsh prevention-spending total, a delivery timetable for a funded programme or a measured saving from such a programme.