Last week, the Pembrokeshire Community Health Council met with the Pembrokeshire and Derwen NHS Trust in formal consultation upon the Trust's 'Bed Capacity and Modernisation Plan'. This plan, agreed by the Trust Board in September, subject to the consultation with the CHC taking place, sets out the Trust's vision for modernising its acute services at Withybush General Hospital. A fundamental component of the plan is a revision to the bed capacity at the hospital. Chief officer Ashley Warlow said that his council members found the presentations made by the chief executive of the Trust and his senior staff to have been most informative. He said: "There is a full understanding of the Trust's need to modernise, to make changes in its methods of service delivery and to improve efficiencies," though he stressed that from his perspective "patients and their needs should remain uppermost in this equation." He said that the Community Health Council welcomed the Trust's intentions to reinstate an all-female ward at Withybush, to reduce its agency nursing costs and to improve day surgery activities. On a less positive note, he said that the council "was not fully persuaded that patients were foremost in the minds of the Trust in implementing its proposals and believed that its current financial circumstances were a significant contributing factor." His members also had concerns that the net bed reduction being proposed might not properly address the current waiting list problems and would need further convincing through an improved delivery of service. To overcome these concerns, it was agreed that the CHC should become involved in closely monitoring the changes through until completion and beyond, and a special monitoring group would be set up for this purpose. The Trust's chief executive, Frank O'Sullivan, welcomed the CHC's involvement in working with the Trust to monitor the planned improvements. Mr. O'Sullivan stressed that this was the first step in modernising services at Withybush General Hospital, adding: "Our plans include the development of a new Endoscopy Unit as one of our top cancer priorities and also major investment in a new expanded A and E Department. This is an exciting time in the development of hospital services for the people of Pembrokeshire and we look forward to moving ahead in partnership with the CHC and other stakeholders." Senior representatives of both organisations will meet in the next few weeks to decide on the terms of reference for the monitoring group.