Llandrindod Wells Hospital under threat?

There has been an interesting change of tone in papers coming out of Powys Local Health Board recently which leads me to believe that Llandrindod Wells Hospital may soon come under threat. In the 2005 consultation document “Doing More, Doing Better”, there seemed to be a plan to close most of Powys’ Community Hospitals, set up improved local primary care centres, of which the so-called Builth Model is the first example, and concentrate some acute services in THREE centres in Powys. The precise location of two of these three Treatment and Assessment Centres, the one in Montgomeryshire and the one in Brecknockshire was always vague, but the one in the centre was clearly destined for Llandrindod Wells.

However, the recent report of the NHS Wales’ Clinical Governance Support & Development Unit (March 2008) on the Review of the arrangements for clinical governance and patient safety within the provider services of Powys Local Health Board now refers to Intermediate Care Centres instead of Treatment and Assessment Centres and Paragraph 20.2 of the report contains the following:

“We recommend the development of two or three centres in Powys for intermediate care with services provided by NHS trusts. These will provide services for appropriate acutely ill patients, surgical patients, and age care consultant patients; presently cared for in Bronllys, Brecon, Llandrindod, Welshpool, and Newtown Hospitals. In addition, the centres will provide Minor Injury Services, as well as a full range of out patient, diagnostic and rehabilitation services.

We recommend that neighbouring trusts are approached to provide services to the people of Ystradgynlais and Machynlleth, given the distance from central Powys”.

Now I’m not a great fan of conspiracy theories but it seems to me that the transformation of three Treatment and Assessment Centres into two or three Intermediate Care Centres is opening the door to withdrawing hospital services from Mid Powys. Certainly the LHB is not going to withdraw an Intermediate Care Centre from either the North or the South of Powys.

So the writing appears to be on the wall - Powys LHB in collaboration with NHS Wales seems to be prepared to contemplate only two Intermediate Care Centres in Powys and under this model the days of Llandrindod Wells Hospital are numbered.

We need to start lobbying Powys LHB now to ensure that they plan for three rather than two Intermediate Care Centres in Powys, otherwise we will find that in the next few years the people of Mid-Powys will become third class receivers of healthcare rather than the second class citizens that we are today, as far as healthcare is concerned.