Hospital services to be downgraded
A HOSPITAL is set to be stripped of some midwifery and children’s services next year as part of a dramatic shake-up.
Cwm Taf University Health Board has confirmed paediatric and obstetric services at the Royal Glamorgan Hospital will be downgraded from summer 2018.
As part of the changes, consultantled midwifery will no longer be available at the hospital in Ynysmaerdy, near Llantrisant. It means babies who are severely premature or ill will not be delivered at the Royal Glamorgan and will instead be sent to Prince Charles in Merthyr or the University Hospital of Wales (UHW) in Cardiff.
Similarly, the current children’s ward will be changed to a paediatric assessment unit which will only open from 8am to 10pm.
As a result, the Welsh Ambulance Service will be told to bypass the Royal Glamorgan and travel to either UHW or Prince Charles if they have critically-ill or injured children on board outside these hours.
And any children visiting the new assessment unit who require an overnight stay will be transferred to one of these two neighbouring hospitals.
Allison Williams, chief executive of Cwm Taf University Health Board, said: “Over the past few years plans have been developed and approved for state-of-the-art facilities in both Prince Charles Hospital and the University Hospital of Wales in Cardiff to support the changes.
“Building work is progressing well and we are now starting the detailed planning for the service changes from next summer. As part of the changes a new paediatric assessment unit will be established at the Royal Glamorgan Hospital.
“It will operate seven days a week, from 8am to 10pm with the full clinical team, led by consultant paediatricians.
“This new way of working has been successfully tested over the last 12 months with the vast majority of children being treated and discharged home during these hours.
“Once the changes have taken place the very small minority of children who will need to stay in hospital overnight will be transferred to Prince Charles Hospital or the Children’s Hospital for Wales in Cardiff.
“Outside of these hours minor injuries will continue to be seen and treated in the A&E at Royal Glamorgan Hospital, which is open 24 hours a day. Children suffering a very severe illness or injury will be taken directly by ambulance to the most appropriate hospital, as happens now.”
The controversial changes were first brought to the public’s attention in 2013 when the South Wales Programme (SWP) was launched. The project called for certain services to be concentrated at fewer hospitals in the region in a bid to strengthen care.
SWP board members concluded consultant-led maternity and neonatal care, inpatient children’s services, and emergency medicine (A&E) should be centralised at UHW, Prince Charles, Swansea’s Morriston Hospital, Bridgend’s Princess of Wales Hospital and The Grange University Hospital, which is set to open in Cwmbran in 2021.
In return, the Royal Glamorgan has since become a “beacon site” for acute medicine and will soon officially open a £6m diagnostic hub.
Mick Antoniw, AM for Pontypridd, said: “Over the last few years we have seen specialist services such as the