Health board unveil plans for three more operating theatres at Singleton Hospital

Plans to expand the number of operating theatres at Singleton Hospital by 50% to help tackle surgical waiting lists are going before Swansea Bay University Health Board.

The hospital currently has six theatres, but the new plans will add another three.

The planned new theatres are modular in design so they can be erected quickly and less expensively than traditional builds. The Board is being asked to approve the plans at its next meeting later today (Thursday 26 May).

The theatres will be the latest in a number of additional modular theatres being introduced to Swansea Bay hospitals.

Neath Port Talbot Hospital is having three new theatres to enable it to become the £25m Centre of Excellence for Orthopaedics.

The Day Surgery Unit (on a site opposite the main Singleton Hospital building) is also having an additional theatre.

The exiting six theatres at Singleton undertake procedures for gynaecology; ophthalmology; colorectal; general surgery; planned obstetric cases; breast surgery, orthopaedics and some plastic surgery.

The three planned new theatres will provide additional activity for plastic surgery; general surgery, Ear, Nose and Throat, and oral maxillofacial surgery.

These three additional theatres at Singleton are expected to undertake an extra 2,190 operations a year.

The health board say that key to this work will be the introduction of a new four-bedded Post Anaesthesia Care Unit (PACU) at Singleton which will allow surgery to go ahead that could only have taken place in Morriston previously.

If the plans for the additional theatres are approved by the Board, the work is likely to be commissioned in 2023/2024.

Swansea Bay UHB Chief Executive, Mark Hackett, said: “We are only too aware of the pain and discomfort being endured by people on our lists who are waiting too long for the treatments they need.

“We are doing all we can to increase capacity to tackle these long lists.

“Expanding our operating theatres at Singleton and Neath Port Talbot will be important steps forward.

“This is in line with our strategic Changing for the Future plans to improve both unscheduled and planned care, and develop each of our three main hospitals as centres of excellence.”

The future plans mean that Morriston Hospital will become a centre of excellence for urgent and emergency care, specialist care and regional surgical services for Swansea Bay, including complex medical interventions.

Singleton Hospital will become a centre of excellence for planned care, cancer care and diagnostics.

Neath Port Talbot Hospital will become a centre of excellence for orthopaedic and spinal care, diagnostics, rehabilitation and rheumatology.

The health board say that by concentrating different skills, resources and specialisms on each site, each hospital will become a ‘powerhouse’ for these services, providing specialist treatments to a higher standard.

(Lead image: Swansea Bay NHS)