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The logic of planned cuts to the opening hours of minor injury units has been questioned by a Plaid Cymru Senedd Member.

Peredur Owen Griffiths, who represents the South Wales East region, brought up the current consultation to limit the hours of the units at Nevill Hall Hospital in Abergavenny and Ysbyty Ystrad Fawr in Ystrad Mynach.

Aneurin Bevan University Health Board has opened a public consultation on the change against a backdrop of increasing financial pressure and overspends. This now closes on December 1 after being extended by four weeks.

Overnight opening hours at the minor injury unit at Ysbyty Ystrad Fawr were temporality reduced during the pandemic, and the health board now wants to make the cut permanent.

The nurse-led minor injuries unit, also previously known as a local emergency centre, had been operating as a 24-hour service, but this was reduced to between 7am and 1am when the pandemic hit three years ago.

Similar hours are being proposed for Nevill Hall Hospital in Abergavenny, although Newport’s Royal Gwent will remain a 24-hour unit.

During questions to health minister Eluned Morgan in the Senedd, Mr Owen Griffiths said A&Es across the NHS were under “incredible pressure” creating a miserable experience for staff and patients.

He said: “Given that minor injury units are seen as a key component in a strategy to ease pressure on A&E departments, is it not a retrograde step, and will this make the Grange University Hospital an even longer and more frustrating experience for anyone visiting their A&E department and heap more pressure on the staff working there?”

In her response, the health minister pointed to low attendance at the unit overnight in Abergavenny.

She said: “That is one of the reasons why, certainly, they have moved to close that facility, and to move people to and encourage people to go to the new Grange hospital, where in fact we’ve put significant investment, and will be making significant additional investment in future years.

“We’ve put an extra £3.5 million capital funding to establish a same day emergency care centre, for example, in the Grange.”

In a briefing document outlining the changes, Aneurin Bevan University Health Board said most patients at Nevill Hall and Ysbyty Ystrad Fawr were seen during the morning with very few later in the day.

The consultation on the changes will run until December 1. To take part people can fill in a survey on the health board’s website, where they can also find details about online video call sessions being held.

A drop-in session is being held at Blackwood Library, on Wednesday November 8 between 10am and 12pm.