Inspectors have received three anonymous formal concerns about the operating theatres at Glangwili Hospital, board papers have revealed.
The alerts reached Healthcare Inspectorate Wales, the NHS watchdog, on 25 February, 11 March and 24 November last year.
Papers going before Hywel Dda University Health Board on Thursday describe “a complex and escalating pattern of workforce, cultural and safety concerns” emerging within theatres at the Carmarthen hospital through 2024 and 2025.
That pattern included “increased sickness absence, interpersonal conflict and staffing concerns”.
The theatres are £2.4m short of safer staffing levels for their normal workload, the papers say, with a further £2.1m gap in anaesthetic funding.
Without the money, the health board faced losing at least one, and potentially two, all-day theatre lists at Glangwili, with knock-on consequences for Bronglais Hospital in Aberystwyth.
The work at risk spans “cancer diagnostics, Ear, Nose and Throat (ENT), ophthalmology, general surgery, emergency obstetrics, and other emergency surgery”.
To keep lists running, the health board has brought in agency firm ID Medical to cover five theatre lists a week.
Ten registered theatre practitioners were recruited last October, and the staffing risk remains on the board’s risk register until 2028.
The £4.5m to fix it has had a rocky journey of its own. The board paused the funding at a private meeting in June, before the chief executive moved to release it in early July.
The money was finally signed off through an emergency Chair’s Action on 23 July, days before Thursday’s meeting.
The papers concede lessons need to be learnt about how that decision was handled, after clinical executives said they had not voiced their concerns strongly enough when the pause was agreed in private.
The theatres pressure lands alongside a letter from the NHS Wales chief executive saying the health board has breached its statutory duty over its finances and planning.
Glangwili is set to take on more surgery, not less: under the health board’s Clinical Services Plan the hospital becomes the regional hub for emergency general surgery.
The board meets at 10.15am on Thursday at Ceredigion County Council’s chambers in Aberaeron, with the meeting streamed online.
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