Cwestiwn ysgrifenedig WQ93352

I have been clear with health boards they need to maximise the use of local, and regional resources for planned care, including theatre capacity. It has been recognised through the national orthopaedic strategy and through the Get it Right First Time (GiRFT) theatre productivity review that there is still significant scope to use the existing NHS Wales estate more productively.

The National Planned Care Programme (part of the NHS Executive) is supporting health boards to transform and improve local and regional delivery.

For orthopaedics this includes:

• Clinical support for implementation of the national orthopaedic strategy.

• Supporting regional working arrangements to maximise resources, in particular theatre capacity across more than one health board.

• Supporting improvement of theatre productivity through benchmarking theatre productivity data collection and sharing good practice.

The Welsh Government has also provided dedicated financial support to the development of orthopaedic theatres across Wales.

• For South West Wales, Swansea Bay and Hywel Dda university health boards have received more than £18m to support the development of the orthopaedic theatres in Neath Port Talbot Hospital. This is part of their regional plan to use Prince Philip and Morrison hospitals for more complex cases and Neath Port Talbot Hospital for less complex cases across both health boards.

• In North Wales, Llandudno Hospital has been identified as a regional orthopaedic site to provide dedicated treatment in a protected space to increase capacity. £29.4m of capital funding has been allocated to support this plan.

• Health boards in South East Wales are finalising their regional orthopaedic services, which will form part of the Llantrisant health park site.

• Through the planned care transformation fund we have commissioned a dedicated project to design a specific theatre workforce model and education programme to build a more sustainable workforce for operating theatres for the future.