Can Wales’ wellbeing law survive the pressures of the next Senedd election?
With the Senedd (Welsh parliament) election due in May, Wales faces a test of whether long-term thinking can survive short-term political pressure.
In 2015, Wales made a bold move. Through the Well-being of Future Generations Act prevention was written into Welsh law, requiring public bodies to consider how today’s decisions shape the wellbeing of future generations.
It requires them to set wellbeing objectives, work across organisational boundaries and prioritise prevention over short-term reaction. Success is measured not only through economic growth but through health, equality, environmental resilience and strong communities.
Take Sian, aged 41, who lives in Swansea and was one of the participants in our recent study. She works full time, has two children, doesn’t sleep enough and had stopped exercising. After rising blood pressure and a health scare, she was introduced to a local community coordinator.
They met for coffee, then walked to a small Sunday sea swim. The first time, the coordinator went into the water with her. Sian was hooked. Through the group she met other women. She now helps organise the swims, and her children go to the beach in all weathers. What began as a referral became part of her life and community.
What shifted was not just her blood pressure, but her connection to movement, people and place. Our research on local area coordination suggests this relationship-centred support can strengthen wellbeing, confidence and social ties before problems escalate into crises.
If this type of preventive work is scaled back, crises may become more frequent and costs may rise, leading to further pressure on hospitals and social care. Health and social care already consume more than half of the Welsh government’s budget. With services stretched and more people living longer with complex needs, that path is not sustainable.
Politically fragile
Passing a law is one thing. Changing how an entire system behaves is another. Politics naturally pulls towards the immediate. Election cycles are short and budgets are set year by year. Members of the Senedd must respond to urgent concerns from voters. Visible problems demand visible progress.
Prevention, by contrast, produces quieter results that often emerge slowly and may not appear within a single parliamentary term. Implementation is also hard. Frontline services and staff are stretched. Legislation can set direction, but embedding change in strained organisations requires sustained backing, culture change and investment.
Public attention follows the same pattern. When uncertainty rises, attention narrows. Waiting lists, rising living costs and visible migration are immediate and emotionally charged. Policies designed to reduce future risk can feel abstract by comparison.
Psychological research helps explain this. Studies suggest that when people feel under threat, they look for stories that explain what is happening and who is responsible. These narratives can restore a sense of control, but they may also simplify complex problems into clear lines of blame.
For a policy built around prevention, this creates a difficult political environment. Polarised debate tends to reward immediate fixes and simple villains rather than the slower work of building the conditions that allow people to stay well.
The Wales the Act imagines
The wellbeing approach takes a broader view of health. Rather than seeing health solely as an individual responsibility, it recognises that wellbeing is shaped by social and environmental conditions. In other words, safe neighbourhoods, strong communities and access to nature.
International evidence suggests that investing earlier in community support can reduce pressure on crisis services. Wales is now exploring a similar redesign, but it will require leadership support and investment.
Research published in 2023 that had followed Welsh communities over a decade found better mental health in greener neighbourhoods, particularly in more deprived areas. Access to nature improves wellbeing directly and can also strengthen people’s sense of connection to the environment, which in turn encourages more sustainable behaviour.
These insights are already influencing local initiatives. Our work has embedded neurorehabilitation – support for people recovering from brain injury or neurological illness – into everyday community life through partnerships between health services and local organisations.
Ecotherapy programmes have been developed through relationships with locally valued initiatives, including community farms and a surfing charity that works with the coastline as part of recovery.
The aim is a shift from simply fixing what is “wrong” to rebuilding agency, purpose and connection. These are all factors linked to resilience and reduced demand on services over time.
Read more: A decade on, six things the world can learn from Wales’ innovative future generations law
Our work also incorporates “biophilic” design – architecture that integrates greenery, natural light and outdoor spaces into buildings – into social housing developments. This work is re-imagining preventive health by bringing nature into our cities, offering residents an opportunity to reconnect to nature, tend to community gardens and grow their own food.
The goal is what we refer to as “sustainable wellbeing”, which means improving health while also nurturing the skills and mindsets needed for a more sustainable future.
Wales is making decisions amid overlapping crises, including widening inequality, rising chronic illness and the accelerating effects of climate change. In this context, the Well-being of Future Generations Act is either a framework for building more resilient systems, or a piece of legislation that is often praised but rarely followed.
Governments ultimately decide whether prevention is protected when finances tighten. But voters shape those choices too. A question facing this Senedd election is whether the Act continues to guide party manifestos, budgets and service design, or slips behind the pressure for immediate solutions.
On May 7, Wales will not only choose its representatives. It will also decide whether the wellbeing of people – and the planet they depend on – remains at the heart of public decision-making.
Lowri Wilkie is a Post-Doctoral Research Fellow in Psychology at Swansea University. She is funded by the Welsh Graduate School for the Social Sciences.
Andrew H. Kemp has previously received funding from Health and Care Research Wales and currently receives funding from the Arts and Humanities Research Council, including support for research on biophilic living, sustainable wellbeing and wellbeing policy. He is Professor of Psychology at Swansea University and holds an honorary clinical research appointment with Swansea Bay University Health Board. He is a member of the Green Party of England and Wales in a personal capacity.
Zoe Fisher has previously received funding from Health Care Research Wales. She is employed by Swansea Bay University Health board and seconded to the West Glamorgan Regional Partnership Board. She also holds an Associate Professor role at Swansea University.