The five health boards in South Wales—Abertawe Bro Morgannwg, Aneurin Bevan, Cardiff and Vale, Cwm Taf and Powys—have been talking to NHS staff, the public and stakeholders about a series of ideas put forward by our clinicians about the future of a range of specialist hospital services: consultant-led inpatient paediatrics, neonatal care obstetrics and A&E care. (Details of this process can be found here.)
These ideas have been put forward in response to the challenges facing these services, including ensuring we have the highly-skilled and trained clinicians we need to provide care to the sickest and most seriously-injured patients at all times. This will ensure that the small number of patients who need this specialist care are able to receive it, wherever they live, when they need it.
The ideas put forward by our clinicians include concentrating this expertise on fewer hospital sites—four or five—across South Wales. The 12-week engagement to debate these ideas finished on December 19.
The South Wales Programme board is currently working on the next stage of the plan – which includes analysing the responses to the engagement process in detail – in preparation for formal public consultation in spring 2013.
The South Wales Programme team, which includes the Welsh Ambulance Service, is also working with clinicians to further develop the clinical service models for obstetrics, paediatrics, A&E and neonatal care. Clinical reference groups have been set up to undertake this detailed service planning work collaboratively across the five health boards.
The latest documents to be published on this website are:
A Statement about the South Wales Programme
The weekly programme news bulletins.
The ORS questionnaire full report
South Wales Programme engagement methods
South Wales Programme engagement themes summary
South Wales Programme engagement themes by health board
South Wales Programme engagement written responses
A summary of responses to the ORS questionnaire