Site of new hospital might go to public consultation

HYWEL Dda University Health Board is deciding whether to hold a formal public consultation to help choose the site for a new urgent and planned care hospital to the west of Carmarthen, between and including Narberth and St Clears.

An extraordinary health board meeting is being held tomorrow and one of the recommendations in the report being discussed, and supported by the independent watchdog Hywel Dda Community Health Council, is to hold a public consultation process.

The new hospital, which the board has put forward to the Welsh Government as part of a £1.3bn business case, is set to open at the end of 2029 and see the loss of emergency care services at Withybush Hospital in Pembrokeshire and Carmarthen’s Glangwili Hospital.

The health board said previously that both hospitals would be “repurposed” while still offering “a range of services to support a social model for health and well-being.” In addition, 17 community and mental health hubs would provide a network of healthcare facilities across the region.

Llanelli’s Prince Philip Hospital and Bronglais Hospital in Aberystwyth would also be modernised.

The health board considers the next step should be formal consultation over the site of the new urgent and planned care hospital, to ensure that the wider public have an opportunity to consider the options.

Five shortlisted sites are being looked at and health chiefs argue they all lay in the most central location for the majority of the population in the south of the Hywel Dda region.

At the meeting, the health board meeting will hear from four separate land appraisal groups, focusing individually on the technical, clinical, workforce, and economic considerations of the possible sites.

From the reports, health chiefs said there is not a current ‘preferred’ site as there is a range of different evidence, impacts and viewpoints.