YSTRADGYNLAIS: Beds campaigners brand Reform ‘naive’ as hospital row deepens

The fight over Ystradgynlais Community Hospital’s beds has turned into a political row, with the Welsh Liberal Democrats branding Reform UK “extraordinarily naive” for backing the health board’s assurances.

The clash follows a meeting on Wednesday between three Reform Senedd Members and senior figures at Powys Teaching Health Board, after which the party accused the Lib Dems of frightening residents with a petition against a closure it says nobody has proposed.

Both parties are fighting over the board’s Better Together programme, the redesign of community health services that packed a public meeting in Ystradgynlais beyond capacity last week, amid campaigners’ fears it could mean beds provided at fewer sites, a long drive north for Swansea Valley families.

According to Reform’s account of the meeting, the board said no final proposals or decisions have been agreed, that a pre-consultation business case goes to the board on 16 September, and that final decisions are not expected before spring 2027.

The board’s representatives also said they do not currently expect any of the options to include closing hospital sites, the party said, and confirmed Powys would keep community hospital beds.

James Evans, Reform UK’s Shadow Minister for Health in the Senedd, and fellow Reform MSs Iain McIntosh and David Mills said they had welcomed hearing from the board directly “rather than relying upon the speculation and political campaigning surrounding these proposals”.

They said they too would challenge any change leaving residents “with a poorer or less accessible service”, but accused the Lib Dems of publishing a petition against a hospital site closure “when the Health Board has made no such proposal”.

“The Liberal Democrats appear to have published the threat and then invited understandably worried residents to join their campaign against it,” they said, calling it “a deeply cynical and questionable way to win political support” that risked unnecessary fear among patients, staff and families.

The Reform MSs also said the Lib Dems had supported a previous Welsh Government budget and so could not “wash their hands” of the financial pressures facing the NHS.

‘Are Reform seriously suggesting every GP practice in Powys is wrong?’

The Lib Dem response came from the two politicians leading the beds campaign, Brecon, Radnor and Cwm Tawe MP David Chadwick and Brycheiniog Tawe Nedd MS Jane Dodds.

“Reform are being extraordinarily naive if they genuinely believe that, after months of work on these plans, the Health Board does not already have a preferred direction of travel simply because the formal consultation has not started,” they said.

Reform, they argued, had “swallowed the Health Board’s assurances wholesale without any critical thinking”. “They should be challenging these plans, not acting as the Health Board’s cheerleaders.”

The pair said every GP practice in Powys had written to the health board with concerns about the direction of the proposals. “Are Reform seriously suggesting that every GP practice in Powys is wrong too?”

They said more than 7,000 people had signed their petition and put attendance at this week’s public meetings in Ystradgynlais, Builth Wells, Llanidloes and Welshpool at over 1,200.

And they insisted Reform were “deliberately dodging the central issue”: the petition, they said, has never claimed buildings face immediate closure, but concerns the threat to social care and step-down beds, with a longer-term risk of “closure by stealth”.

“We have seen this playbook before: beds and services are gradually stripped out of community hospitals until politicians and health bosses eventually turn around and declare what remains financially unviable,” they said.

On the budget charge, the party said Dodds abstained on the Welsh Government’s 2025 budget after securing more than £100m of additional funding, and refused to back the most recent budget over concerns about Powys healthcare funding.

For its part, the health board has said publicly, in a letter to Powys politicians this month, that there are “no plans or proposals to close any community hospital sites in Powys”, while acknowledging “bold decisions will be needed” and that some services, such as hospital beds, could be “provided in fewer locations than now”. Its board decides on 16 September whether to launch a formal public consultation.

Ystradgynlais Community Hospital sits at the top of the Swansea Valley and serves villages on both sides of the county line, from Abercraf down to Ystalyfera and Cwmllynfell.