Betsi Cadwaladr approves £6.6m for permanent Emergency Department staff
Betsi Cadwaladr University Health Board has approved up to £6.6m to recruit permanent doctors, nurses and healthcare support workers across its three Emergency Departments.
The board signed off the investment at its meeting on 25 June 2026.
The money is recurring annual spending, meaning it will fund posts on an ongoing basis rather than as a one-off payment.
It is made up of £2.7m held in reserve pending the completion of a business case examining current staffing arrangements, plus a further £3.9m approved at Wednesday’s board meeting.
BCUHB runs Emergency Departments at Ysbyty Glan Clwyd, Wrexham Maelor and Ysbyty Gwynedd.
The health board said the investment was intended to reduce its reliance on bank, locum and agency staff and replace temporary cover with permanent posts.
It said prolonged waiting times, delayed ambulance handovers and overcrowding within the EDs were principally caused by restricted patient flow and limited capacity across the wider health and social care system.
Carol Shillabeer, Chief Executive of Betsi Cadwaladr University Health Board, said:
“This essential investment will help to stabilise our Emergency Departments, as we continue to work with partners across the health and social care system to address the underlying challenges of restricted patient flow and limited capacity, which remain the principal causes of prolonged waiting times, delayed ambulance handovers, and overcrowding within our EDs.”
She added that the investment alone would not resolve all challenges within the Emergency Departments but described it as “a critical enabler of wider system improvement.”
BCUHB has been in special measures since 2023 and remains under Welsh Government intervention.
The health board said its ED staff faced “high levels of fatigue and burnout” as a result of sustained pressure, and that the new permanent posts were also intended to improve staff morale and wellbeing.
A report published by the Royal College of Nursing in December 2025 found that BCUHB held 451.5 whole-time equivalent registered nurse vacancies, the highest of any health board in Wales at that time.
The RCN’s Nursing in Numbers 2025 report, based on Freedom of Information data, recorded at least 1,480.8 registered nurse vacancies across NHS Wales as a whole, with BCUHB accounting for almost a third of that total.
The same report found that NHS Wales spent £88.7m on agency nurses in 2024/25.
The number of posts to be created has not been confirmed.
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