YSTRADGYNLAIS: Hospital would lose its beds, minor injuries unit and X-ray under every option in health board shake-up

Ystradgynlais Community Hospital would lose its inpatient beds, its minor injuries unit and its X-ray service under every option Powys’ health board is preparing to put to the public.

The proposals appear in board papers published this week ahead of Powys Teaching Health Board’s meeting next Tuesday, where members will decide whether to launch a formal public consultation on the biggest reshaping of the county’s community hospitals in a generation.

The Better Together Phase 1 plans offer two options for physical health inpatient care: 90 beds across three sites, at Brecon, Llandrindod Wells and Newtown, or 60 beds across two, “most likely Newtown and Brecon”.

Powys currently has 146 community hospital beds across eight sites, according to the board’s own figures. Twenty of them are at Ystradgynlais.

Under both urgent care options, enhanced urgent care centres would run at Brecon and Newtown, with Llandrindod Wells keeping a minor illness and injury unit under only one of the two.

For Ystradgynlais, the papers say services currently provided through the town’s MIU “would transfer to the enhanced UCC in Brecon” under both options, with the hospital’s X-ray provision also transferring to Brecon. In plain terms: no minor injuries unit and no X-ray at the town’s hospital, whichever option is chosen.

The same pattern applies further north, with Welshpool’s MIU services and X-ray transferring to Newtown, along with Machynlleth’s X-ray provision.

Mental health inpatient care would be consolidated into a single “Mental Health Centre of Excellence” of around 35 beds on the Bronllys site or in the Bronllys and Brecon area. Before temporary changes, mental health wards operated at four Powys hospitals, including Tawe Ward at Ystradgynlais, which served patients aged 65 and over.

None of the options proposes closing hospital buildings; they move the services inside them. The board said in August there were “no plans or proposals to close any community hospital sites in Powys”, while acknowledging some services could be “provided in fewer locations than now”.

The papers land in a campaign that has been building all summer. More than 400 people packed a public meeting in Ystradgynlais in August, the Liberal Democrats say more than 7,000 have signed their petition, and the row has already drawn Reform UK into a public clash with the campaigners.

Now the Lib Dems accuse the board of running a “sham” consultation with the direction of travel already set.

David Chadwick, MP for Brecon, Radnor and Cwm Tawe, said: “People across Powys were promised that they would have a genuine say over the future of their hospitals. Instead, they are being presented with a choice between two different versions of sweeping cuts.

“Before a single resident has responded to the formal consultation, most options have already been taken off the table. Keeping our existing network of community hospital beds isn’t even being offered as a choice. How can anyone reasonably describe that as a genuinely open consultation? People will understandably feel they have been hoodwinked.”

On Ystradgynlais specifically, he said the scale of what is proposed “is staggering”, adding: “We will not stand for the hollowing out of our community hospitals. We are gearing up our campaign across Powys and will fight tooth and nail to protect the local services our communities depend on.”

Jane Dodds, Senedd Member for Brycheiniog Tawe Nedd, called the proposals “a shocking betrayal of the trust of communities across Powys” and demanded the Welsh Government step in.

“I have repeatedly warned Ministers that rural healthcare cannot simply be treated as though Powys were an urban area where another hospital is ten minutes down the road,” she said. “Removing beds and centralising services inevitably means much longer journeys for some of the oldest and most vulnerable people in Wales. The people of Powys deserve a real choice over the future of their NHS, not a sham consultation where some of the most important options have been discarded before they are even asked.”

The board’s papers push back on the idea that anything is settled. The options “are not presented in order of preference and should not be interpreted as preferred options”, they state, and approval on Tuesday would authorise consultation, not implementation, with “alternative approaches” explicitly invited and responses “conscientiously considered” before any recommendation is made.

The board’s case for change centres on sustainability: the current model runs nine inpatient wards across eight sites, with agency staff needed to keep around 21 beds open, and every option includes what the papers describe as a major expansion of community-based, home-first and Hospital at Home care intended to reduce the need for hospital beds altogether.

If the board approves the plans on Tuesday, a formal 12-week consultation would follow, extended by two weeks to allow for the Christmas period.