NHS chair says new hospital is key for the West
THE Easter bank holiday weekend continued to see health services placed under pressure across the Hywel Dda University Health Board region in West Wales.
At present a higher proportion of people in Wales have Covid-19 than in any other part of the UK, with the rising infection rate now higher than it has ever been at any other point in the pandemic.
The Office for National Statistics (ONS) infection survey suggests that 231,900 people in Wales had the disease in the week ending April 9, equivalent to 7.63% of the population, or around one in 13 people.
While the seriousness of illness is not as severe as earlier in the pandemic, the case rates are still putting a strain on health services.
Maria Battle, chair of Hywel Dda University Health Board, which covers Carmarthenshire, Ceredigion and Pembrokeshire, said: “Although the current Covid wave has mercifully not led directly to the same tragic outcomes that we saw in 2020-21, the impact on our staff and our ability to deliver NHS services has perhaps been even greater than at any time previously.
“It is with familiar feelings of trepidation and hope that we watch and wait for the latest phase of the pandemic to dissipate, and for more normal times to return.”
Having hospitals that are fit for purpose, with staffing levels to meet the needs of the population, is paramount to the health board’s vision over the next decade and beyond.
This was outlined in January when Hywel Dda submitted a business case to the Welsh Government that could see £1.3 billion ploughed into overhauling health care across Mid and West Wales, with the goal of building a new ‘urgent and planned care’ hospital on the Carmarthenshire-Pembrokeshire border between St Clears and Narberth by 2029.
Elsewhere in the plans, Glangwili Hospital in Carmarthen and Withybush in Haverfordwest would lose services and be “repurposed” while still offering “a range of services to support a social model for health and well-being”, the health board has said previously.
In addition, 17 community and mental health hubs would provide a network of healthcare facilities across the region.
It was also decided that Aberystwyth’s Bronglais would continue to provide acute hospital services for Mid Wales and that Llanelli’s Prince Philip would remain as a general hospital offering acute medicine. Both would be modernised.
Speaking about the next steps of the plans relating to the new ‘urgent and planned care’ hospital, Mrs Battle said: “We are in the process of establishing a group, which includes representatives of our community, to select an appropriate location for our new hospital.
“The land selection group will consider a broad range of factors in deciding upon a location, including travel times, and ability to integrate with transport networks.
“We have been open with our communities that we have a number of fragile services, which means that we cannot give absolute guarantees that we are going to be able to keep everything operating as it currently is across the two hospital sites in the intervening period.
“However, we do not intend to make changes to A&E provision at Glangwili or Withybush hospitals until the new hospital is built.”
The overhauling of healthcare will include improving the health board’s existing buildings.
Mrs Battle said: “I came home to Pembrokeshire to be chair of Hywel Dda almost three years ago.
“I was deeply shocked at our estate, and still am. We have almost accepted it as the norm. It is not. We in West Wales deserve much better.
“Now, it’s our turn. We have a historic opportunity, unknown in West Wales, for a potential £1.3billion investment in our NHS.”
Creating local employment for the local construction industry is also a key part of the next decade.
Mrs Battle said: “We have been working with businesses and colleges to create trade apprenticeships so that our younger generation can help to build our new hospital.
“We will create jobs in IT, estates, administration, in addition to our medical and supporting professions, providing a broad range of career options for people in our area, during and after the building and refurbishments of our estate, a real and much-needed investment in our local economy.”
Staffing the new hospital is also a crucial element and how the health board is laying the foundations to attract medical staff is key, she said.
“We are already growing our own nurses through our apprenticeship scheme, a unique project in Wales, and giving a chance to the kindest and most compassionate within our own communities to become fully qualified nurses.
“Again, after returning home, I was shocked at how many vacancies we have in Hywel Dda.
“The cost of agency staff is unaffordable and while we remain indebted to them for their support, we know that this is not the best staffing model to provide the care our communities need and deserve.
“We can only overcome this by ushering in a new age of NHS recruitment, by becoming an outstanding employer that people are proud to work for, and our plans to transform the health board in West Wales will do that.”
Turning to the last two years of the pandemic, Mrs Battle added: “We have all learned a lot in the pandemic, how we all depend on each other, and how courage, selfsacrifice, care and kindness has shone through.
“I want to thank everyone, from the cleaners, to the porters, the cooks who fed our workforce, the doctors and nurses who carried out urgent operations and looked after patients; and at the very beginning, when PPE was in such short supply across the country, all the key workers who came in to work day after day.”