“WHAT threshold must be crossed before the Welsh Government is prepared to intervene?” Paul Davies MS has challenged the Welsh Government regarding the continued reconfiguration of services across West Wales and the impact of decisions which can leave patients travelling significantly further for treatment.

Mr Davies has repeatedly raised concerns about the future of services at Withybush Hospital and Bronglais Hospital, arguing that the realities of delivering healthcare in rural communities must be properly recognised.

His intervention comes at a time when Hywel Dda University Health Board remains under significant Welsh Government oversight.

The Welsh Government’s latest escalation assessment confirms that Hywel Dda remains at Level 4 – the second-highest level of escalation – for finance, strategy and planning, urgent and emergency care, healthcare-associated infections and fragile clinical services.

The Government’s own framework states that Level 4 applies where organisations have serious problems and there are concerns that they cannot make the necessary improvements without external support. It also provides for Welsh Government-coordinated action and direct intervention to support improvement.

Significantly, the Health Board’s fragile services intervention includes nine clinical areas: critical care, dermatology, elective orthopaedics, ophthalmology, urology, emergency general surgery, stroke, endoscopy and radiology.

Mr Davies has now also questioned the Counsel General directly about the Welsh Government’s legal powers to intervene in health board service reconfiguration decisions.

During the exchange, the Counsel General confirmed that Welsh Ministers retain statutory powers to direct health boards and formally intervene where there are failures relating to governance, performance or the exercise of their functions. He said such powers are intended as safeguards in circumstances including significant patient-safety concerns, failures in consultation or decision-making, breaches of statutory duties or wider governance concerns.

The Counsel General said that if failures relating to governance, performance or the exercise of health board functions were engaged, “there would be a case for intervention by Welsh Ministers”, although he said he did not consider those grounds to have been met at that stage.

Mr Davies said:

“People across west Wales have seen services reduced, relocated and reconfigured over many years, and there is understandable concern that healthcare is being moved further and further away from the communities it is supposed to serve.

“What makes the current position particularly difficult to understand is that Hywel Dda is already at Level 4 intervention in several important areas, including fragile clinical services and urgent and emergency care.

“The Welsh Government itself says Level 4 is used where there are serious problems and concerns that an organisation cannot make the necessary improvements without external support.

“The Counsel General has now also confirmed that Ministers retain statutory powers to intervene where the relevant legal grounds are met.

“So my question remains: what threshold actually has to be crossed before the Welsh Government is prepared to take further action?”

The Senedd Member for Ceredigion-Penfro added:

“I will continue challenging the Welsh Government, scrutinising decisions affecting Withybush and Bronglais and pressing Ministers to use the powers available to them where the legal grounds for intervention are met.”