Pembrokeshire and Derwen NHS Trust Board has approved detailed plans for an £8 million development on the Withybush Hospital site.

The Welsh Assembly gave the green light last year to develop a Full Business Case for a new Emergency Care Centre at Withybush Hospital. This has now been completed and gives an exciting vision of what the facility will offer to patients in Pembrokeshire.

Mags Barnaby, the hospital's acting director of operations, described how the facility would cater for an expected 50,000 patients each year, with space for separating those with minor needs from others requiring treatment for major illness and injury. A 20-bed Clinical Decision Unit will help the clinical team in their work and will bring huge benefits in managing the beds in the rest of the hospital.

"The development will provide a base for the council's social care workers and the Local Health Board's GP out-of-hours service, as well as our own hospital staff," she added, stating that it would lead to reduced emergency admissions and to patients being seen and treated by the right people in the right place.

"This can only be achieved," she said, "by moving away from the traditional way of doing things and creating the right environment for emergency hospital services to work alongside primary care as part of one, integrated team."

She added, should the pattern of acute health service delivery change across Mid and West Wales in the future, the facility would continue to be suitable for the delivery of local health services.

"There is a pressing need to improve our current A & E facilities. They are outdated and too small. They are making it difficult for us to achieve our waiting time targets, and they lead to duplication between out-of-hours primary care services and hospital emergency services. The case we have put forward allows for building work to start early in 2007, with the new facility up and running by March 2008."

Following the Trust Board's approval, the plan will be referred to the Welsh Assembly's Regional Office for early consideration.