First brick laid (From Penarth Times)

First brick laid

HEALTH minister Jane Hutt this week laid the first brick of the new 10.6 million ortho-paedic unit at Llan-dough hospital, which should cut waiting lists dramatically in the Vale.

The new centre is a key part of the Assembly Gov-ernment's overall strategy for improving ortho-paedic services in Wales.

The minister said: "I am delighted that building work has now started on this new centre for Cardiff and the Vale. It shows early actions that have arisen from the Wales Orthopaedic Plan are already coming to fruition and that substantial benefits will soon be visible to patients in South East Wales.

"The new centre will provide extended outpatient services, additional radiological services and new theatres that will focus on day surgery and simple procedures with a very short length of stay.

"This will free existing facilities to concentrate on more major joint replacements. This will help to reduce waiting times still further.

"Orthopaedic waiting times have been an area of major concern, but we have made significant improvements in recent years. The investment we are putting in will impact on the length of time people have to wait. We want to improve patient access to services and speed up the time from referral to treatment in orthopaedics."

Jane Hutt added: "I committed recurrent revenue of 5 million for each of these regions when I launched the Orthopaedic Plan this summer. They are currently finalising local plans for developing their ortho-paedic services on a sustainable basis. Elements of the 30m capital investment programme that I announced last month will also impact on access to, and delivery of, orthopaedic treatment across Wales."

"The Cardiff and Vale Orthopaedic Centre is a key development that provides important new capacity for patients in South Wales to be treated quickly, and adopts new ways of delivering this. This marks a very practical step in dealing with long waiting times that will make a real difference to patients."