THE opening of the new £350 million Grange University Hospital in Cwmbran must not result in important health services being taken further away from patients in rural areas such as Monmouth, an AM has said.
Speaking in the Assembly earlier this week, Monmouth's Nick Ramsay said he was concerned once the new facility in Llanfrechfa is opened in 2021, some services would be relocated from Abergavenny's Nevill Hall Hospital, leaving patients in his constituency facing longer trips for treatment.
An artist's impression of how the new facility in Llanfrechfa will look
The new hospital will include a 24-hour acute assessment unit and emergency department, diagnostic services, operating theatres, a consultant-led obstetric unit and a paediatric assessment unit.
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Addressing first minister Mark Drakeford, Conservative AM Mr Ramsay said: "We know there have been some concerns locally around Abergavenny and, indeed, south Powys, about the relocation of certain services, such as paediatrics, obstetrics et cetera from Nevill Hall to the new critical care centre.
Monmouth AM Nick Ramsay
"What reassurance can you give my constituents that Nevill Hall will be redeveloped in a modern general hospital form and will not lose further important local services, thereby allowing the new critical care centre to get on with the job that it has been built to achieve and which hopefully it will achieve in the future?"
Replying, Mr Drakeford said "the vast majority" of services currently based at Nevill Hall, as well as local hospitals in Chepstow, Ystrad Mynach and Ebbw Vale, would remain there.
First minister Mark Drakeford
But, saying "change is always challenging in the health service", he added: "Consultant-led obstetric and paediatric services will in the future be at the Grange Hospital, but that's how it should be because that hospital will provide complex specialist or critical care, providing the very best services for those people who need them at that level of intervention, while allowing that local hospital network to go on providing the bulk of services needed by those local populations."
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