Aneurin Bevan University Health Board

Part of 5. Topical Questions – in the Senedd at 4:37 pm on 20 October 2021.

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Photo of Baroness Mair Eluned Morgan Baroness Mair Eluned Morgan Labour 4:37, 20 October 2021

Thanks very much, Russell. We do hope that the Grange will become a flagship hospital, because we've spent a considerable amount of money on it; £358 million has been invested in this hospital to support the people of the Gwent area, and I do think that it's important that we remember the context in which it was opened. You must remember that, at the beginning of the pandemic, Gwent was one of the first places in the whole of the United Kingdom that was hit hardest by COVID, so having this hospital being able to take a bit of pressure off other hospitals in the area was a relief at the time. But of course, what it meant was that the recruitment that perhaps should have been done was not done in time. But you do, I think, need to remember the context in which we are working. I'm really pleased now, though, that the health board has understood that they do need to listen to the clinicians who have made their case very clearly through this report.

The Grange was initially designed as a specialist centre, and provision for general internal medicine wasn't prioritised, but it's clear that the local population are accessing the hospital in a different way from the way that was envisaged, and I think the plan now is to make sure that any new recruitment will, for example, help to establish a front-door-based frailty service, for example, which will be able to be led by a consultant and other senior therapists, which is a provision that wasn't envisaged. But sometimes you do need to respond to, actually, the way that the local population are using the facility, even if that wasn't the way that was envisaged in the first place. I know that the health board has done a huge amount of work to try and contact the local population, to try and point them in the right directions in terms of which hospitals they should be attending for what issues. We're still going through those teething problems. It's just that those teething problems, of course in the middle of a pandemic, have taken longer than they would have, probably, if we weren't in a pandemic.