Public must be consulted on bed closures

7.07.15pm BST (GMT +0100) Mon 11th Sep 2006

Peter Black and Swansea West Candidate Peter May at Singleton Hospital

Plans to close 57 beds in Swansea hospitals must be subject to full public consultation the South Wales West Liberal Democrat Assembly Member, Peter Black, has demanded.

Mr. Black was speaking in the light of the announcement by Swansea NHS Trust that they intend to close a total of 170 beds at City hospitals, with 57 to go immediately in Singleton and Morriston Hospitals as a first phase. The Trust envisage saving £1.2 million, £300,000 of which will be reinvested into their nursing budget. However, Mr. Black says that the plan raises a number of questions as to what will happen to patients that would normally occupy these beds and in particular, how the cuts will impact on waiting times for elective surgery and other treatments.

"It seems that this announcement has been sprung on us without any proper explanation of how it will be implemented and what its impact will be on services," said Mr. Black. "I welcome the fact that there will be no redundancies among nursing staff, but nobody has said what will happen to patients."

"Clearly, the loss of any beds will put more pressure onto community services and Primary care providers such as GPs. The Council and the Local Health Board may have to pick up some of the slack by supporting more patients in the community, and yet there does not appear to be any more money available for this work."

"It is important that we have a full consultation on these proposals before they are implemented so that we can all see and consider their impact on other services. The Trust must work in partnership with other providers, not foist its own problems onto them."