Conservative Senedd member for the Vale of Glamorgan and Bridgend Andrew RT Davies has demanded plans for a new hospital in South Wales be progressed.
Speaking in the Senedd, Mr Davies warned a new hospital is “10 to 15 years overdue”.
He said “anyone visiting Cardiff’s Heath Hospital can see the fabric crumbling before their eyes”.
He called on Plaid Cymru Health Minister Mabon ap Gwynfor to commit to “address the shortfall of funding and make the diggers gid the foundations to build a new hospital in Cardiff”.
Ap Gwynfor failed to commit to the project, emphasising “no plans have come forward by the health board to redevelop the University Hospital of Wales”.
Mr Davies said:
“Staff at Cardiff’s Heath Hospital work incredibly hard, but it’s clear the building is crumbling and major investment is required.
“Plaid Cymru separatist ministers cannot leave it to the health board – they must work with them to make a new hospital happen.
“By the end of this Senedd term, we need to see the diggers in the ground and work underway.”
ENDS
NOTE: Please find below the Senedd’s record of proceedings from Wednesday 17th June
https://record.senedd.wales/Plenary/16075#C763990
Andrew R.T. Davies
14:31:58
Minister, I can remember talking to the then chief executive of the Cardiff and Vale University Health Board some 10 years ago about the desire to build a new hospital on the Heath hospital site. I believe it is some 10 to 15 years overdue from the original projection when the Heath hospital was built in the early seventies. You highlighted your own visit to the hospital and anyone visiting there can see the fabric crumbling before their eyes. There is excellence going on every day at that hospital and staff are performing miracles, and patients are very grateful for that, but in the fabric of the buildings that exist on that site, that is no way to provide a regional health hub.
Will you commit, at the end of this term, to address the shortfall of funding and make the diggers dig the foundations to build a new hospital in Cardiff?
Mabon ap Gwynfor
14:33:03
Llywydd, the Member is absolutely right that the situation that we find ourselves in with regards to the University Hospital of Wales, and indeed other hospitals across Wales, is not acceptable. He was absolutely right in stating that staff are working miracles in very difficult circumstances. I echo those points. But just to re-emphasise that no plans have come forward by the health board to redevelop the University Hospital of Wales. Our priority at the moment is to ensure that we fix the urgent backlog in the NHS across Wales so that we ensure an equity of outcomes for patients across the whole of Wales.
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