Clwyd West MS Darren Millar made fresh calls yesterday for the delivery of the promised North Denbighshire Community Hospital. 

The Labour Welsh Government promised to build the new facility at the site of the Royal Alexandra Hospital in Rhyl 11 years ago to relieve pressures at Ysbyty Glan Clwyd. However, residents are still waiting. 

In yesterday’s meeting of the Welsh Parliament, Darren, who has repeatedly been calling for progress on the project, raised the matter with the Cabinet Secretary for Finance, Mark Drakeford MS, during a question on Welsh Government priorities. 

He said: 

“One of the priorities that people in my constituency, and indeed the wider communities of Conwy and Denbighshire, want to see on your list is the delivery of a new community hospital for the people of north Denbighshire.

“It's long been promised, but there has been insufficient progress on the delivery of that promise. It's been 11 years since you made an announcement that there was going to be a new hospital with additional beds to take pressure off Glan Clwyd Hospital. When can people expect to see an announcement on the funding being available to deliver that project, so that once and for all we can deal with some of the pressures in our acute hospital site?” 

In his response, the First Minister blamed the delay on rising costs, which he said had escalated to over £100 million. 

However, he said work has been ongoing to review the scope of the development and that his is expecting that that business case will be submitted to the Welsh Government for consideration in this financial year.

He added: 

“And the second piece of good news is that with £235 million additional capital available to us in Wales next year, then the needs of the health service will be much in my mind as I have discussions across the whole of the Welsh Government, and my hope will be that we will be able to see, compared to what we have had, a significant increase in the capital available to the NHS in Wales, so that schemes such as that at the Royal Alexandra can be moved forward.” 

Speaking afterwards, Darren said: 

“Whilst I was encouraged by the update from the Cabinet Secretary for Finance, I still maintain that had the Welsh Government not dragged its feet, this new hospital would have been up and running years ago, making the patient experience a much better one for residents of North Denbighshire. 

“Instead over the past 11 years we have witnessed increasing pressures on staff at Ysbyty Glan Clwyd and longer wait times for patients, whilst seeing investment in a brand new hospital in South Wales. 

“I really hope that when Mr Drakeford is allocating money to NHS Wales, he ensures that a new North Denbighshire Hospital is one of the top priorities and that the project isn't scaled back to the extent that it makes little or no difference."