Health board's finances and emergency services criticised

The performance of a south east Wales health board has been strongly criticised by the health secretary.

Jeremy Miles called the Aneurin Bevan board's £18m deficit "not acceptable" and said some of its emergency services had "failed to deliver required improvements".

He announced "direct intervention" by Welsh government officials "to improve the quality and timeliness" of emergency care at Cwmbran's Grange hospital.

Miles moved the health board's finances and emergency care up from level three to level four on the Welsh government's five-point intervention scale.

Speaking in the Senedd on Tuesday, Miles warned the financial situation at the Aneurin Bevan health board, covering the Blaenau Gwent, Caerphilly, Monmouthshire, Newport, and Torfaen council areas, had "deteriorated rapidly" this year.

"It is forecasting an £18.3m deficit by the end of March - this is not acceptable," he said.

"I am placing the Aneurin Bevan university health board in level four escalation for finance, strategy and planning and I am revoking the approval of its three-year plan."

On urgent and emergency care at the Grange hospital, opened five years ago, Miles said: "Despite considerable investment and staffing in the emergency department, the health board has failed to deliver the required improvements.

"I am also raising the escalation level to level four for urgent and emergency care at the health board, this will result in direct intervention by the Welsh government and NHS Performance and Improvement to improve the timeliness and quality of urgent and emergency care for people living in the Gwent region."

Miles confirmed that Wales' largest health board, Betsi Cadwaladr, would remain at the highest level of government intervention at level five.

The north Wales board returned to this status, commonly referred to as special measures, in February 2023 after a two-year break from the most intensive degree of oversight.

Plaid Cymru pledged to review the special measures framework and strengthen the NHS executive role if the party wins power at next May's Senedd election.

Plaid Senedd member Mabon ap Gwynfor said there appeared to be "no ceiling to Labour's mismanagement of our precious health system and Betsi's situation shows that the special measures process is simply not fit for purpose".

"Failing standards in our health system have been normalised under Labour," he said.

The Welsh Conservatives described the process as feeling "opaque and remote from the lived experiences of patients waiting years for care".

Shadow health secretary James Evans said: "People in north Wales have been let down for years. Hywel Dda and Powys are making huge decisions on the front line because of financial mismanagement.

"How can escalation arrangements be credible if they do not explicitly account for staffing shortages, retention challenges and workforce burnout?"