£100m to improve hospitals and palliative care

Jul 2 2008 by Madeleine Brindley, Western Mail

THE NHS will today receive a £100m-plus cash bonanza to improve patient services, hospitals and cancer equipment.

The money, to be announced by Health Minister Edwina Hart, includes £66m for a new hospital in Mountain Ash and £25.3m to redevelop mental health facilities in North Wales.

And, as a review found large gaps in palliative care for people with life-long and terminal illnesses and a shortage of specialist staff, the Welsh Assembly Government will invest £8m to improve services over the course of three years.

NHS-based palliative care and services provided by the voluntary sector will get £1m this year, rising to £5m in 2010-11.

The announcements come as the NHS prepares to celebrate its 60th anniversary on Saturday.

Mrs Hart said: “The NHS has seen significant investment in recent years in more staff, new equipment and buildings which has resulted in better and faster treatment for patients and improved working environment for staff.

“This latest investment shows my commitment to continually improving services for patients. It is fitting as we mark the 60th anniversary of the NHS that we are investing in its future.”

The Assembly Government has approved final plans for the 128-bed Cynon Valley neighbourhood healthcare facility in Mountain Ash, two new mental health units for adults and the elderly in Wrexham and plans to replace outdated equipment for cancer patients at the North Wales Cancer Centre.

The new Mountain Ash hospital will include a £10m dental unit, which will provide NHS dentistry for up to 10,000 people living in the area.

Half of the beds in the hospital will be in single, en-suite rooms and the remainder in single sex bays. There will also be a midwifery-led birthing unit and access to X-ray and ultrasound to speed up patients’ diagnosis and treatment, and to reduce the need to travel for these tests.

In Wrexham, the £25.3m will pay for two new units to replace outdated facilities for adults and older people with mental health conditions.

Work on the 44-bed adult unit and 28-bed elderly mental health unit will start imminently and is expected to be completed by 2010.

Mrs Hart, who will visit the site today, said: “New state-of-art mental health facilities will greatly improve the care on offer to people living with mental health conditions, which will help to aid their recovery and quality of life.

“I am pleased to be able to approve the final plans for the development and visit the site of the new units.”

The remainder of the money will pay for new equipment for cancer patients being treated at the North Wales Cancer Centre, including two new linear accelerators and a CT scanner. “This development will again mean that patients will continue to receive treatment locally in North Wales to reduce the need to travel, which will help reduce pressure on patients and speed up recovery,” Mrs Hart added.

She also announced that Baroness Finlay of Llandaf will lead a group to take forward the recommendations suggested in the palliative care planning group report, which was published yesterday , and identified large gaps in current services.

Mrs Hart said that service level agreements will be established by April, setting out what palliative care services should be funded by the NHS and what should be funded by voluntary hospices.

“Palliative care cuts across all specialities and services have remained patchy across Wales,” she said.

“That is why, once and for all, I wanted to establish what constitutes core palliative care services and a means for measuring the quality of those services.

“In order to address the inequalities of palliative care service provision I must be sure that public funding is directed to where it is needed most in order to ensure that patients and their carers receive the level of palliative care they expect to receive, when and where they expect to receive it.”

Hart pledge for Palliative care

HEALTH Minister Edwina Hart, has announced £8 million over the next three years to improve palliative care across Wales.

The extra money will see £1m being allocated to palliative care across Wales in 2008-09, increasing to £2m in 2009-10 and £5m in 2010-11.

The funding comes in response to the report from the Palliative Care Planning Group.

The report, officially launched earlier today, makes a number of recommendations to improve the current service.

Advice on where investment should be prioritised will come from an Implementation Group led by Baroness Finlay.