A LOCAL councillor has warned that downgrading Nevill Hall Hospital in favour of a creating a Critical Care Centre in Cwmbran could make the travel arrangements for patients "more stressful than any illness itself."

The warning came as the Bryn y Cwm area committee was told of plans by the Aneurin Bevan Health Board to develop a new network of local general hospitals with Nevill Hall and Newport's Royal Gwent being downgraded to provide routine hospital services including emergency care and outpatients clinics, while specialist units would be housed in a state of the art specialist and critical care centre based at Llanfrechfa Grange.

Angela Jones, the board's locality director for Monmouthshire, explained that the board proposed to increase the range of services provided in the community through primary community and mental health savings.

She said: "We want to develop services that maintain the independence of patients by keeping them out of hospital where possible.

"Manpower, or more accurately the lack of it, dictates that all services need to be brought together as there are not enough specialists being trained to serve the amount of hospitals that we have in the country.

"Therefore a central unit is needed so we don't have specialists working from outlying hospitals.

"The role of Nevill Hall Hospital will change in the future and this could see it having a reduced accident and emergency unit. Having a centralised unit means that we increase productivity and efficiency."

Councillor Doug Edwards said, "With all this extra traffic travelling through Llanellen, the whole stretch of this trunk road needs to be looked at as part of the complete infrastructure of the new hospital scheme."

Councillor Giles Howard said: "My overriding fear is that taking services away from Nevill Hall and making patients travel to Cwmbran, and in many cases by public transport, this would be as stressful as the illness itself."

Ms Jones responded: "There is an ongoing dialogue at present with public transport providers for developing ways of overcoming these problems."

Ms Jones went on to explain that many of these ideas have remained largely unchanged since they were devised some years ago.

Questioned about Nevill Hall's future status, Ms Jones replied: "We can sum the situation up by saying that small procedures will continue to be carried out at Nevill Hall, which will be reclassified as an enhanced local general hospital - so much more than the traditional cottage hospitals used to be.

"Nevill Hall will not be just be a hospital for the elderly as the maternity unit and other departments will remain.

She added: "In recent years we have reorganised staff already and developed a workforce that meets staffing levels where the demand on services is at its greatest."

Ms Jones said that mental health provision in Abergavenny is also set to be upgraded with two possible options being looked at.

She said: "One option is to move all services onto the Nevill Hall site or the other option is to use the building at Maindiff Court, where the service is currently provided, so that the site could be redeveloped and modernised.

"But whatever happens mental health services, wherever the unit is located, will be strengthened in Abergavenny."

Tony Konieczny from Abergavenny Civic Society pointed out that Nevill Hall Hospital was the largest single employer in Abergavenny and he suggested that if the size of the operation was reduced by 50 percent that it would have a large impact on the town's economy.

Ms Jones replied: "Whilst the number of beds in the hospital would be reduced the number of patients will remain the same as they will be, where possible, cared for in the community."

Councillor Brian Jones (pictured) said, "It's all very well having a critical centre in Cwmbran, but if the ambulances are not available then its role is diminished.

"Monmouthshire has the worst ambulance service in Wales and South East Wales is the worst performing of the Welsh Ambulance Services."

The site at Llanfrechfa Grange, which contains a number of listed buildings, is not due to be demolished until the end of 2013. Construction work is planned for the start of the following year.

The new critical care centre is not likely to be opened before 2017 and current proposals suggest that the unit will have 450 beds.

The new Ebbw Vale hospital, Ysbyty Aneurin Bevan, is a 90 bed rehabilitation centre with a significant out patients unit.