10 field hospitals to be retained as cases increase

THE Welsh Government has announced that it will retain 10 field hospitals over the winter period as cases of coronavirus continue to rise.

Health Minister Vaughan Gething has confirmed that the temporary hospitals, which are spread across four health boards, are capable of providing approximately 2,600 additional NHS beds.

He added that this will be supplemented by a further 2,500 new available beds across existing NHS hospital facilities, one new NHS hospital and a new “modular building” on the site of an existing hospital.

The 5,100 additional beds are around half of the 10,000 the Welsh Government asked for during the first wave of coronavirus cases in the event of a “reasonable worst-case scenario”.

Some 19 field hospitals were established around Wales last spring in a matter of weeks to boost bed capacity by thousands.

Thankfully, many of them did not need to be used due to people’s compliance with lockdown restrictions, maintaining good hygiene and social distancing.

Mr Gething said: “As we approach this winter, and with the recent rise in Covid-19 cases, it is highly likely health and social care services will require additional capacity to manage increasing demand for services.

“We must ensure we retain access to sufficient additional bed capacity to manage any increase in admissions of with Covid-19.

“We are now more than six months into the Covid19 pandemic.

“We learn more about the virus on a daily basis, and how best to secure positive outcomes for Wales.

“Based on data modelling and ongoing learning from the first peak, health boards were asked to retain 5,000 beds across Wales to enable safe management of a potential realistic worst-case scenario caused by a spike in emergency admissions to hospital beds.”

In practice, at a health board level this means:

Swansea Bay University Health Board undertook work earlier this year to transform the Bay Studios in Swansea. patients

This site will be retained and provide capacity of up to 818 beds if required.

Hywel Dda University Health Board, due to its dispersed local population, will retain a range of smaller field hospitals sites across the region. This will include ‘y Barn’ at Parc y Scarlets, the Selwyn Samuel Centre in Llanelli, Bluestone in Pembrokeshire and Aberystwyth and Cardigan Leisure Centres.

Alongside additional bed capacity in existing NHS hospital sites, the health board will retain additional capacity of 613 beds.

Mr Gething added: “Crucially, this additional capacity is intended to enable health boards to continue to undertake planned surgical procedures and manage urgent and emergency care demand during the historically challenging winter period; in addition to the management of any potential increases in numbers of patients admitted to a hospital bed caused by Covid-19.

“I would like to thank local authority, independent sector, private sector and NHS partners for their ongoing support in enabling additional capacity to be established and retained at scale for the remainder of 2020-21.

“We will continue to monitor the situation and a further review will be undertaken following the submission of health board plans later in the year to consider any requirement for further capacity plans in 2021-22.”