Hospital beds built outside A&E department to cope with demand

Six hospital beds have been built outside one of Wales' busiest hospitals to help cope with demand.

The new facility, named POD - Patient Offload Department - has been built in one of the ambulance bays outside the Royal Gwent Hospital in Newport.

The health board said the facility will "help speed up the care of patients" and will help them to be "transferred safely at the hospital, enabling ambulance crews to be released more quickly."

It said it has already cared for "an unprecedented amount of patients in its Emergency Departments this winter" with ambulance crews waiting outside the hospital with patients until space has become available inside.

Health boards across Wales experienced their busiest ever month on record in December, with just 53% of patients waiting below the target of four hours in A&E at the Royal Gwent.

Health bosses say the POD will provide a "safe and dignified offload area".

Darren Panniers, Area Operations Manager for the Welsh Ambulance Service, said the PODs include disabled toilet facilities, hospital trolleys, medical gases and monitoring.

He added, “We recognise that, in isolation, this will not solve the problem of handover delays, but it’s a practical step in the circumstances to ensure ambulances can be released faster, especially during the busy winter period".