Welsh super hospital plans resurrected
Health Board claims shelved proposals are \'way forward\' for acute care services
Shelved plans for a £270m ‘super hospital’ in Wales have been resumed, with the facility earmarked to open by 2018.
Proposals for the development were put on the backburner in early 2009 due to the economic downturn and demands by Health Minister, Edwina Hart, to ensure the scheme was ‘robust’.
But in its recently-published five-year plan, Aneurin Bevan Health Board says the scheme is ‘the way forward’ for local people and will complete a network of six hospitals in the region.
Members of the public and service users will now be asked to comment on fresh plans for the site of the former Llanfrechfa Grange Hospital near Cwmbran.
Once completed, the specialist and critical care centre would have more than 400 beds, including high intensity coronary, critical care and stroke beds, and 200 adult inpatient beds for complex surgical patients, with intensive care and high dependency back-up. There would also be 40 neonatal cots and a 50-bed maternity unit.
Early blueprints are yet to be given planning permission and the scheme will also require business case approval from the Welsh Government. But, if it goes ahead, it is intended it will open by 2017/18.
