Worrying news for healthcare in Cardiff

Written by Jenny Randerson and published in Cardiff Post on Tue 17th Jun 2008

Just last week an interesting, and perhaps deeply worrying piece of news came out. Cardiff and Vale NHS Trust seem to be planning a long term strategy of reducing the number of acute beds in the area by aiding the recovery of hundreds of patients in the community.

The second part at least is a noble intention. Too many hospital beds are filled with patients who could be recovering at home. This prevents beds being available for other, urgent cases.

But there is only one strategy which would allow the Trust's plan to work. That is a massive and sustained investment in the community side of their plan. Bed-blocking happens because there is a lack of community nurses to care for people at home and a chronic shortage of care homes for patients to go to when they leave hospital. Over the last few years, there have been ups and downs in terms of spaces in these homes, but the clear pattern shows that the shortage continues. From what I have seen of the Trust's plans, they do not show how they will build uo the community side of things before withdrawing all of these beds. Unless they can show how it will be done, they are likely to meet with huge public opposition to their plans.

The part of the Trust's plans which have raised the most anguish however is the part about closing the West Wing of the CRI and Rookwood Hospital and replcing them with a new facility in North Cardiff. I am the first one to recognise that West Wing, and in fact Rookwood are currently past their sell-by dates. There is an urgent need for these facilities to be housed in decent buildings which aid, rather than hinder recovery. But I would strongly resist any plans to re-locate the services at West Wing to the other side of the city. The great thing about the CRI is its prime city-centre location which makes it accessible to a large number of people.

On top of this, the Health Minister is currently undertaking a review of the health needs of central and Eastern Cardiff so I fail to see how the Trust can pre-empt this by announcing its plans to move services out of the area.

The CRI site is an amazing resource which I have watched for many years being squandered. We must make use of this site as much as we possibly can. I would like to see extra services put in, such as one of the Assembly Government's pilot Walk-in-centres. Above all, I want to see the site used as it is the best bet there is for developing and improving NHS services in Cardiff.