5. Will the First Minister make a statement on the future of NHS services at Nevill Hall Hospital in Abergavenny? OAQ53716

Nevill Hall Hospital will continue to play a key role following the opening of the Grange university hospital in 2021. Its new role is set out in Aneurin Bevan University Health Board’s clinical futures strategy.

Thank you, First Minister. As you know, I attended the topping out of the new critical care centre in Llanfrechfa last week. You mentioned Gwent clinical futures. That new critical care centre at Llanfrechfa only works as the top of the Gwent clinical futures pyramid, with general hospitals operating, such as Nevill Hall, at the second level, and community services as the base level—at least that was the original plan. 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. 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? It's a fantastic facility that I was pleased to visit last week.

I thank the Member for that question. He's quite right to say that the vast majority of health services at a hospital level will continue to be provided by that network of local hospitals—Ysbyty Ystrad Fawr, Ysbyty Aneurin Bevan, Chepstow and county hospitals, as well, of course, as the very important role that Nevill Hall Hospital will go on providing in the future, delivering the majority of hospital services, a minor injuries unit, a midwife-led maternity unit, diagnostic tests, therapies, in-patient and out-patient care, continuing to be an out-of-hours primary care centre, diagnostic services in respect of MRI, CT and medical assessments. That is the vision that Gwent clinical futures set out. That does mean—and change is always challenging in the health service, as he knows—that 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.

Finally, question 6—Delyth Jewell.