Pembrokeshire and Derwen NHS Trust is to be one of the first in Wales to deliver the emergency and urgent care plans unveiled by the Minister for Health and Social Services Edwina Hart this week. The Trust and Pembrokeshire Local Health Board are one of four sites chosen to deliver the Welsh Assembly Government's Delivering Emergency Care Strategy (DECS) designed to ensure patients get the right care from the right person at the right time and to ease pressure on vital parts of the emergency care system. Medical director and A&E consultant Charles Merrill said: "The provision of integrated emergency and urgent care services will put Pembrokeshire at the forefront of patient care developments in Wales. The result will be a single service that will work together to improve quality of care and patient's experience of that care." Key elements of the strategy in Pembrokeshire include: • A new £8.75m Emergency and Urgent Care Centre at Withybush Hospital to provide care for patients who currently access A&E. Preparatory work for construction of this new facility in June is already underway. • More care and support provided closer to people's homes in partnership with local authority social services and voluntary agencies. The newly- opened South Pembrokeshire Health and Social Care Resource Centre is designed to do just this. There will also be further schemes to help people to self-manage long-term conditions and more provision of telecare and telehealth. • Staff working differently to ensure that patients are seen by the most appropriate health professional in minimum time, such as patients being seen by a senior clinician upon arrival rather than by more junior staff to ensure they get the most appropriate treatment with minimum delay. The new Urgent Care Pembrokeshire Service soon to be implemented in stages at Withybush Hospital will provide this service. • Better and safe sharing of information across care providers to tackle patients' concerns about having to repeat information to different providers. The new Individual Health Record scheme will provide such a service locally. Once completed in late 2009, the Withybush Emergency and Urgent Care Centre will be one of the first in Wales to offer emergency, urgent care and social services under one roof and is part of a £39m improvement plan for services locally. It will more than quadruple the size of the current A&E and will include: • A four-bay resuscitation centre for people needing resuscitation or stabilisation • An adult clinical decision unit with 17 en-suite assessment rooms and two treatment rooms for those needing to see senior doctors • A separate children's clinical decision unit in a child-friendly environment • Eight 'see and treat' rooms for people with urgent minor ailments or injuries. This service will provide home visiting where medically appropriate. • A Care Co-ordination Service to guide people to the most appropriate care provider, to support patients at home and to discharge patients safely. • A dedicated gynaecology room and its own X-ray facilities. Urgent Care Pembrokeshire will integrate existing hospital, community and out-of-hours primary care providers, including social services into a single service. The development is jointly led by Pembrokeshire and Derwen NHS Trust and Pembrokeshire Local Health Board in partnership with Pembrokeshire County Council, Welsh Ambulance Trust, Pembrokeshire Community Health Council and Welsh Health Estates and will be rolled out over the next 18 months. Said the associate medical director of Pembrokeshire Local Health Board, Dr. Iain Robertson-Steel: "This system has the capability to improve the quality of care available to patients across Pembrokeshire and their families."