Support quality, independent, local journalism…that matters

From just £1 a month you can help fund our work – and use our website without adverts. Become a member today

Keeping a 24-hour minor injuries unit at Abergavenny’s Nevill Hall Hospital could result in operations and treatments for patients across Gwent being delayed, councillors have been warned.

The chief executive of the Aneurin Bevan University Health Board (ABUHB), which is struggling to keep to its budgeted £112 million deficit this year, has told Monmouthshire councillors the NHS cannot afford to keep all current services running and meet demand.

The health board is currently consulting on plans to close the minor injuries unit at Nevill Hall in Abergavenny overnight.

The health board has said its figures show an average of one patient a night attends Nevill Hall between 1am and 7pm.

ABUHB chief executive Nicola Prygodzicz said: “We are faced with choices right now because we can’t afford to do everything we want to do.”

She added that deciding against the the overnight closure could mean “400 people are not going to get their cataracts maybe, or 80 people don’t get knee replacements or we might not be able to do some of endoscopy work we are trying to do which is around cancer treatments”.

“We are constantly trying to juggle decisions with an impact,” she said.

Appearing before Monmouthshire County Council’s public services scrutiny committee, Ms Prygodzics said the health board was currently “trying to make decisions that have got the least impact and least risk on patients requiring health care”.

She said this was “because we will get to a point where we take decisions that have a greater impact. We would have to change working patterns as we can’t keep people working shifts where they see one patient a night.”

Ms Prygodzics and the board’s general manager for urgent care, Paul Underwood, insisted the plan to close the unit from 1am to 7am isn’t only about cutting costs.

Under the plans, the Royal Gwent Hospital in Newport would be the only 24-hour, seven day a week minor injury unit in Gwent – with Nevill Hall moving to 7am to 11pm opening hours – the same as those at Ystrad Mynach’s Ysbyty Ystrad Fawr.

ABUHB is also consulting on making the opening hours at Ystrad Mynach, that were reduced from around the clock during the Covid pandemic, permanent, while there is no change to the 9am to 7pm, five days a week service at Ebbw Vale’s Aneurin Bevan Hospital.

The nurse-led units, which can treat injuries that are not life or limb-threatening, support the Emergency Department at the Grange Hospital in Cwmbran and receive around 50% of all urgent care patients across Gwent. But an average of only 1.9 patients attend Nevill Hall between 1am and 7pm, compared to 4.75 at the Royal Gwent during the early hours.

Mr Underwood said seeing just one patient a shift, or 36 a month, doesn’t allow nurses to keep their skills to maintain their professional registration.