MORE than 5,000 responses to controversial plans to centralise some specialist hospital services in South Wales, including Newport and Abergavenny, have been received in the first four weeks of a two-month consultation.

Aneurin Beavan Health Board chief executive Dr Andrew Goodall said the public response to the consultation, which closes on July 19, has been ‘more than we have in any other consultation before’ and that no decision has been made.

Speaking on BBC Radio Wales Eye on Wales programme on Sunday, he warned that change will have to happen but added: "We will still be looking at everything we have done to date- all of the data, the evidence and the clinical views-alongside all the views we receive from the public and our responsibility will be to take account of all that."

Five health boards have drawn up four options for the future of hospital services in Cardiff, Swansea, Newport and the Valleys, known as the South Wales Programme, because they believe change is needed to ensure Welsh hospitals meet UK standards.

They argue changes are essential to ensure hospital care meets UK-wide professional standards and to deal with issues such as a shortage of doctors and increasing demand.

Senior health officials warn that eight hospitals providing one or more of the following services- consultant-led maternity care, specialist baby care, in-patient specialist children’s care and emergency medicine-are unsustainable.

A proposed Specialist and Critical Care Centre (SCCC) at Cwmbran is included in all four options and would replace the Royal Gwent and Nevill Hall hospitals in providing A & E, neonatal, obstetric and paediatric services.

It would be built at the former Llanfrechfa Grange Hospital to treat the sickest patients.

A final decision is expected in the autumn.