[2] Following the pre-legislative Welsh devolution referendum of 18 September 1997, Royal Assent was given on 31 July to the Government of Wales Act 1998.

Each LHB is responsible for delivering all NHS healthcare services within a geographical area, divided into a number of Network Clusters.

[9] Since the reorganisation health boards have been responsible for delivering all NHS services, replacing the two-tiered trust and LHB system.

[10] Five of the health boards paid for spot contracts with private healthcare providers costing a total of more than £6 million between 2013 and 2015 to carry out NHS work on elective surgery.

[11] In 2019 the Welsh government decided to introduce an NHS indemnity scheme for GPs, to reduce the financial burden of their insurance premiums.

[14] NHS Direct Wales/Galw Iechyd Cymru provides a non-emergency telephone health advice and information service.

[15] The Welsh government introduced a national robotics assisted surgery strategy in March 2022 with additional funding provided by local health boards over 10 years.

The Welsh Health Minister Mark Drakeford decided that from September 2014 NHS Wales staff would be paid at least the living wage, resulting in about 2,400 employees receiving an increase in salary of up to £470 above UK wide Agenda for Change rates.

[21] In October 2014 Jeremy Hunt claimed that English hospitals close to the Welsh border were under "absolutely intolerable pressure" and that people were fleeing the "second class health service" in Wales.

University College London Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust complained in June 2015 that commissioners outside England use a "burdensome" prior approval process, where a funding agreement is needed before each stage of treatment.

A survey by the Health Service Journal suggested there was £21m of outstanding debt relating to patients from the devolved nations treated in the last three years, against total invoicing of £315m by English NHS trusts.

[23] In 2014 the Nuffield Trust and the Health Foundation produced a report comparing the performance of the NHS in the four countries of the UK since devolution in 1999.

Due to pressure sickness absences for ambulance staff reached the highest level since records began in the first three months of 2018.

[30] In October 2014 the Daily Mail claimed that "Around half of Welsh cancer sufferers must wait six weeks or more for many scans and tests yet in England ...

[32] In February 2016 the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development published a review which concluded that performance of the NHS in Wales was little different from that in the rest of the UK.

[33] In November 2022 a survey by Ipsos and the Health Foundation found just 19% of the Welsh public were confident about their devolved government plans for the NHS.

[35] In February 2015 Mark Drakeford wrote to the leader of the Welsh Liberal Democrats Kirsty Williams proposing a cross-party commission on the future of the NHS in Wales.

Drakeford said: "Discussions about the long-term future of the Welsh NHS should sit outside the knockabout of day-to-day party politics."