BMA Cymru Wales has today launched its Senedd 2026 manifesto*, Health in our hands, setting out a bold and practical plan to rebuild NHS Wales and deliver the care patients deserve.

The plan focuses on five areas**, including proper investment for general practice, fairer pay for doctors, prioritising patient safety, improving the nation’s health and recruiting and retaining more doctors to bring down waiting lists and provide a higher standard of care.

Dr Iona Collins, Chair of BMA Welsh Council, said:

“Our NHS is at breaking point. Patients are waiting too long, doctors are stretched beyond safe limits, and the system is struggling to cope. This manifesto is our prescription for change. The collapse of the NHS is not inevitable, this is our plan to turn the tide, to restore the health service and protect the future of care in Wales.”

The manifesto lays bare the scale of the challenge facing NHS Wales: record waiting lists, unsafe practices like corridor care, and a workforce crisis that is driving doctors away. It calls for urgent action to retain Welsh-trained doctors, expand training opportunities, and address the root causes of burnout and under-resourcing.

Dr Collins added:

“These are not just the priorities of doctors—they are the foundations of a safe, effective and sustainable NHS. We stand ready to work with the next Welsh Government to deliver the change our patients need. The people of Wales cannot wait.”

Ends

Notes to editors

*Read BMA Cymru Wales – Senedd 2026 Manifesto: Health in Our Hands 

**BMA Cymru Wales 2026 manifesto calls on the Welsh Government to 

Invest in general practice

• Develop in partnership with the profession a plan to embed a national safe standard for working, including a maximum number of patients per GP per working day
• Commit to funding general practice properly: addressing the immediate financial sustainability challenges facing practices; restoring the proportion of the NHS Wales budget spent in general practice to the historic level of 8.7% within three years, with an aspiration to increase to nearer 11% in the next five years
• Deliver a review of the appropriateness of the current funding model for general practice
• Invest in the GP workforce, including developing a GP-specific workforce strategy to address GP under and unemployment, and increase the number of GPs in Wales toward the OECD average
• Improve the general practice estates strategy, enabling GPs and their teams to practice in modern, fit-for-purpose settings

A fair deal for doctors, a sustainable NHS for Wales

• Deliver full pay and resource restoration
• Conduct long-term workforce planning with medical training alignment
• Fund new posts to eliminate medical unemployment and underemployment
• Improve working conditions and the medical student experience at a local level
• Create and maintain an inclusive culture ensuring doctors and medical students do not face disadvantages due to background or protected characteristic

Put patient safety first

• End corridor care in Wales, beginning with reporting and recording corridor care as a “never event”
• Ensure referral to treatment (RTT) is defined and measured equally in NHS England and Wales, with ambitious target timeframes
• Expand minimum staffing level legislation to medical professionals
• Implement regulation of managers in NHS Wales in line with plans in NHS England, strengthening leadership and improving accountability
• End the substitution of doctors with non-medically qualified roles

Invest in health, not just healthcare

• Ensure the implementation of Health Impact Assessments, monitoring and reviewing their effectiveness over the next Senedd to identify health impacts of any public policy decision and to minimise health inequalities
• Deliver future Welsh budgets that set out and account for prevention, with commitment to increasing prevention funding
• Promptly expand tobacco and vaping regulation, including tackling illegal trade, banning flavoured vapes and tightening restrictions on advertising and marketing to protect children and young people
• Introduce a national strategy to tackle rising alcohol and drug-related deaths, including maintaining and uplifting Minimum Unit Pricing, investing in drug and alcohol services, and reducing the availability and advertisement of low-cost, high strength alcohol
• Invest in public mental health and early intervention mental health services, including better access for children and young people
• Address health inequalities by tackling the wider determinants of health, such as income and work, with a bold ambition to reduce child poverty
• Increase the number of public health consultants in Wales to the recommended level of 30 whole-time equivalent per million population, with a focus on healthcare public health

Train in Wales, Stay in Wales

• Increase in foundation and speciality training posts in Wales to meet demand and avoid training bottlenecks
• Reverse the decline of clinical academics in Wales so we can train the next generation of doctors and boost research and innovation in health
• Work with the BMA locally and nationally to improve working conditions and training and deal with the rising personal costs of medical exams and college fees
• Review NHS bursary and wider medical student funding mechanisms in recognition of rising costs of studying medicine and to support widening participation