Rugby star opens new hospital ward extension
WERNDALE Hospital in Carmarthenshire has opened a £1m expansion that promises to transform the facilities and services to patients.
The private hospital in the village of Bancyfelin, between Carmarthen and St Clears has served the area for more than 32 years and is part of Circle Health Group.
Money pumped into Werndale is part of its £125m redevelopment programme across their network of 50 hospitals in the UK.
The Werndale extension features new en-suite rooms for patients and additional ward space for new nurses’ stations, new technology and medical equipment.
James Davies, former Wales and Scarlets rugby player, from Bancyfelin, cut the ribbon to mark the official opening this month.
Staff and consultants were given the chance to view the new extension, with a small gathering to mark the occasion and celebrate all the hard work that has gone into this project over the last 12 months.
Jacky Jones, executive director of Werndale Hospital said: “The investment programme is an exciting opportunity to expand what we can offer to patients at Werndale.
“Our staff and consultants are delighted with this expansion which will allow us to meet the private healthcare needs of patients and families in Wales and will decrease waiting times which will positively impact the patient’s experience.
“Having the new patient rooms here increases our ward capacity by 20%, it is a great investment.”
Gaynor Llewellyn, Director of Clinical Services said: “At Werndale we continually invest in the hospital so that we can offer our patients and consultants reassurance when they visit us for treatments”.
Werndale is seeing increased demand for its services across all specialities particularly orthopaedic surgery, ophthalmology, and general surgery. Nearly 4,000 patients had surgery there last year and the new investment will enable ward capacity to be increased by 25 per cent.