Children at Ysgol Heol Goffa, the special school in Llanelli, will go back next month to be looked after as they were last term: by teachers and classroom assistants doing medical jobs that nurses would normally do.
Some of the children have breathing tubes fitted at their throats. Some need help with catheters. Some have seizures. There is no nurse permanently based at the school.
Parents have been asking for one for five years. This month they were turned down again, by the health board and by the Welsh Government minister in charge of health.
Lana Dakin, whose eight-year-old son Jac has the rare genetic condition Schinzel-Giedion syndrome, said the answer meant little to families handing their children over every morning.
“Getting a letter that just talks about training and guidance in 2027 is a kick in the teeth,” she said.
“Estyn have already said the school needs a dedicated nurse. The head’s been asking for five years. Parents have been saying the same for years.”
The school was built for fewer than 100 pupils. It now teaches close to 150 children with complex needs, in a building campaigners say has a leaking roof, narrow doorways and corridors with too little room for mobility aids.
A new £35m Ysgol Heol Goffa is due to open near Ysgol Pen Rhos in September 2029, after the council scrapped an earlier version in 2024 and a petition signed by more than 9,000 people forced it back. As of June, the funding still rested on a business case the council had not yet submitted.
So the children stay in the current building for at least three more years, looked after by staff who are not nurses, while the guidance the minister is relying on arrives in 2027.
Hywel Dda University Health Board does provide nursing support. A community children’s nursing service visits the school, and the board trains staff there to carry out the procedures the children need.
What it does not provide is a nurse based at the school full time, and that is the whole of the argument. Parents say visiting support is not enough when a child can go downhill in minutes.
Sharon Daniel, the board’s director of nursing, quality and patient experience, said the health and wellbeing of children was a priority.
“We support the children and young people at Ysgol Heol Goffa with a specialist/community children nursing service to meet their universal health needs, and through the provision of training for staff at the school,” she said.
“We provide specialist support, ensuring each child and young person with healthcare needs can be cared for competently and confidently within the school environment.”
She said continued partnership working would strengthen provision at the school.
That is almost word for word what the board told us in February, when the Children’s Commissioner for Wales asked to meet them about the same thing.
Neither the board nor the minister has said outright that a permanent nurse will not be provided. Neither has said one will.
Llanelli Town Council wrote to the health minister in June, backing calls for a full-time nurse at the school.
Cllr Shaun Greaney, a Labour member of the town council for the Lliedi ward and a former governor at the school, wrote separately on 9 July.
He told the minister that teachers and assistants were “not fully trained and confident, nor totally proficient” to give the treatments the children need, and asked him to meet parents.
Greaney said the stakes were plain. “There is a risk to the lives of around a dozen vulnerable children with complex medical needs at the school,” he said.
“They are genuinely fearful for the safety of their children because there is no full-time registered nurse at the school. I asked the minister to intervene to put things right as soon as possible, and to hear their concerns first hand.”
He said the reply had not done that. “I am stunned that he has so far refused to make a responsible decision to establish the facts for himself.”
“I am genuinely fearful that he has made a possible fatal error. Children’s lives should not be gambled with.”
The reply came on 3 August from Mabon ap Gwynfor, the Cabinet Minister for Health and Care. It says officials worked with the health board, the school and Carmarthenshire Council to take “immediate action to provide additional support”, and that staff “have received appropriate training and have been assessed as competent”.
Where the nurse should come from, the letter says, “remain[s] a matter for the relevant local authority and health board”. It does not mention the request to meet parents.
Dakin said the school staff were not the problem. “They know Jac. They care. And they give so much love to him everyday,” she said.
“But they are teachers and support staff. They are not specialist medical professionals. They shouldn’t have to carry this alone.”
She said a nurse would spot changes early, support staff and work with families. “This is not a luxury. It is an essential safeguard. Every morning we hand over the people we love most in the world to the school.”
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