THE NUMBER of medical beds at Withybush Hospital will return to usual in September as hospital county boundaries are reinstated by Hywel Dda University Board (UHB).

From Thursday, September 1, the county boundary for Withybush Hospital, Haverfordwest, will return to that in place prior to August 2015 when temporary changes began.

This will mean that patients from Tenby, Saundersfoot, Kilgetty and Narberth, requiring emergency or urgent medical care, will be admitted to Withybush Hospital through GP referrals or ambulance admissions, rather than Glanwgili Hospital, Carmarthen.

The temporary change had been necessary to align the medical capacity at the hospital with the number of medical staff available after the Wales Deanery were unable to recruit core medical trainees to the Haverfordwest hospital as usual in August 2015.

Chief Executive Steve Moore explained: “We are pleased to be able to reinstate the boundaries as we have managed to stabilise medical staffing, with recruitment of a number of locums. We are grateful to both our staff and our patients for their support during this period, although I recognise and regret that it did take us longer than expected to get to this more stable position.”

Withybush Hospital will now return to having 95 medical beds, 17 adult clinical decision beds for general medicine and a total of 76 surgical beds. There will be  capacity to open a maximum of nine additional ‘surge’ beds. As was the case prior to August 2015, there may be the requirement to divert Pembrokeshire patients to other hospitals during periods of high demand.

Chair of Hywel Dda Community Health Council John Philips said:  “We’re pleased to hear that the boundaries will revert to their normal status. Our initial concerns were that the patient experience would be poorer through these changes and so we visited both Withybush and Glangwili hospitals a number of times to talk to patients and see for ourselves what the impact was. Thankfully people remained positive about their hospital experiences, which was reassuring but we urged the health board to do all it could to return normal service to provide care as close to home as possible. Whilst it has taken longer than we wanted, today’s news is positive. Looking ahead however, it is crucial that the health board ensures that staffing; the foundation of good health care, is sustainable.”

Clinical Director for Withybush Hospital Dr Iain Robertson-Steel said: “We are putting worldwide efforts into recruiting medical and nursing staff for Withybush Hospital and indeed across the health board, so that we can maintain safe care across our services. It remains a challenge for us, and indeed the NHS across the UK.”

The UHB is liaising with GP colleagues and those in the Welsh Ambulance Service Trust so that everyone involved in the patient pathway is clear on the referrals and reinstatement of the county boundaries.”

Options to further increase bed capacity at Withybush Hospital are currently being considered and the situation is being kept under close review.

Patients on the Carmarthenshire/Pembrokeshire boundary are being reminded that they do not need to take any different action to accessing care than what they have been doing. Throughout this period, patients have still been able to walk into any Emergency Department as they usually do, with only GP referrals and ambulance admissions affected.