BEDS - End corridor care in A and E

20/06/2026

We welcome the new Senedd’s focus on the emergency department at Ysbyty Glan Clwyd. It is deeply worrying that, only a few years after the damning HIW report into the same department, there appear to be no long-term, consistent improvements to safety or culture.

We know frontline staff are working incredibly hard in intolerable conditions, and they deserve better support. We are pleased to hear that BCUHB is finally looking at increasing staffing in A&E, and we hope this will include senior medics in triage so that less obvious but serious complications are not missed by junior clinicians working under pressure without adequate support or facilities.

However, this crisis cannot be fixed by tinkering at the edges of the emergency department. Without a serious, system-wide increase in bed capacity and step‑down care, corridors will remain full and emergency clinicians will continue to be unable to reach the sickest patients in time. Safe discharge options and social care for people who cannot return home are essential if flow through A&E is ever going to improve.

BCUHB now needs to answer some very clear questions:

- What are the plans for the ward at Abergele that will be freed up once the new orthopaedic surgical hub in Llandudno finally opens, given that this development is already delayed beyond original expectations.

- Are there any intentions to return to the original, more ambitious plans for the Rhyl hospital development, which would have significantly increased bed numbers on the site once it opens.

- Will BCUHB end the exhausting, drawn‑out “not yet officially a consultation” process for Tywyn, and commit to staffing the 16 beds that could ease pressure on Dolgellau, instead of continuing with options that permanently remove inpatient beds from the area.

- Will BCUHB allow options that include inpatient beds at Penley before consulting the public on proposals that exclude them altogether.

- Will BCUHB explore repairing and reopening the mothballed ward at Denbigh Infirmary as part of a serious plan to increase capacity across the patch.

Without increased bed capacity and properly funded step‑down and social care, the situation in A&E at Glan Clwyd and across north Wales will remain unsafe and unsustainable, no matter how hard staff work or how many reports are written.

If you share these concerns, please help us make capacity a priority for the new Members of the Senedd now. Write to your SMs (you can find their details at [WriteToThem.com](https://www.writetothem.com)) and contact us for a template letter you can adapt. If we miss your comment or question online, please send us a direct message so we can respond.

Issues at Ysbyty Glan Clwyd's emergency unit include leadership and culture, patient safety and overcrowding

16/06/2026

Closing community beds and services in South Gwynedd is not just an inconvenience — it makes healthcare inaccessible to the most vulnerable when they need it most.

Tywyn has 16 state-of-the-art beds ready and waiting to ease pressure on hospitals across BCUHB and A&E, yet plans continue that could see them lost for good. Endless consultations cannot become a pathway to closure.

We need action, not delay. Help us protect these vital services. Write to your representatives at www.writetothem.com and contact us for a template.

The only real solution to the corridor crisis is restoring step-down care and services within our communities.

09/06/2026

We gave the new Senedd time. Time to settle, to take stock, and to set out credible plans to address the persistent A&E pressures and corridor care crisis affecting North Wales—and now spreading into mid and south-west Wales.

But the crisis has not paused for politics.

This week, Flintshire became the third BCUHB county council—alongside Denbighshire and Conwy—and the fourth in Wales, with Powys, to declare a health emergency. Half of the six local authority areas within BCUHB have now formally sounded the alarm over unsafe and unsustainable conditions for patients and staff.

Yes, social care pressures are a major factor. But that is precisely why greater scrutiny is needed—not less—of what is happening inside Wales’ largest and worst-performing health board.

The new Health and Social Care Secretary, Mabon ap Gwynfor, has announced plans for 600 new GPs, expanded out-of-hours provision, and surgical hubs to tackle waiting lists. These are welcome steps. But they do not address the fundamental blockage in the system: patients who are medically fit to leave hospital but have nowhere safe to go.

Without robust step-down care and reablement services, people remain stuck in hospital beds they neither want nor need—while others wait dangerously in A&E corridors for care.

Across North Wales, communities are being asked to accept fewer local inpatient beds and more fragmented “community solutions” that simply do not match the level of need.

In Tywyn, BCUHB argues that reopening 16 modern inpatient beds would cost a minimal amount more than its current model—one that offers overstretched nurses around 20 minutes a day with vulnerable patients across a wide rural area. Yet nearly half that amount has already been spent on private consultancy, for a process that will not even reach formal consultation until the autumn—more than three years after the beds were “temporarily” closed.

In Penley, credible, workable alternatives put forward by the Rainbow Foundation—experts in reablement already operating on site—have been excluded from consultation. Not one of the board’s proposed options includes inpatient beds.

In Abergele, a ward is due to become available following the opening of the Llandudno surgical hub. Still, there is no confirmation it will be used to relieve the well-documented pressures at Glan Clwyd, just ten minutes away.

And this is not isolated. Hywel Dda and Cwm Taf Morgannwg are following the same path: closing and centralising community beds through drawn-out processes that feel less like genuine consultation and more like attrition.

The faces in government may have changed. The direction of travel has not.

Centralisation has been the dominant strategy for nearly three decades. It has not delivered a resilient system. There is no reason to believe it will start now.

It’s time to step back from the narrow focus on waiting list statistics and look at the whole system. Healthcare does not function in silos. It depends on balance.

Primary care to prevent and manage illness.
Acute care to treat it.
Step-down care to support recovery and independence.

Remove one layer, and the whole structure falters.

Right now, that is exactly what we are seeing: vulnerable patients stranded in hospital, and acutely unwell people unable to access timely care.

Until we rebuild that full pathway—including properly resourced local inpatient and reablement services—this crisis will not resolve. It will deepen.

We need to raise our voices and make sure step-down care is not forgotten.

Write to your representatives today at writetothem.com If you’d like a template, message us and we’ll send one over. If we miss your comment, please get in touch again—this issue matters.

Together, we can keep step-down care at the forefront of decision-makers’ minds.

08/06/2026

Flintshire becomes the third of six districts under the Betsi Cadwaladr Health Board to declare a health emergency.

Flintshire council backs healthcare emergency motion and calls for health board chief to face councillors Share WhatsApp Twitter Facebook Flintshire County Council has backed a motion declaring a ‘healthcare emergency’ in North Wales. The authority will invite the chair and chief executive of Be...

28/05/2026

As consultations reopen on closed and reduced step-down care across Wales, we have real, community-backed solutions on the table — and we need to push to make sure they aren’t ignored.

During the Penley Hospital engagement process, a proposal for a 12 bed step-down and rehabilitation facility emerged strongly from community feedback — potentially in partnership with the Rainbow Foundation, whose work supporting older people’s independence is already valued locally. This model would require no multi-million pound rebuild and could be operational far sooner than any large-scale hospital development. It would relieve pressure on Wrexham Maelor, freeing beds beyond A&E corridors for patients who need more urgent care.
Yet the current BCUHB shortlisted options have ruled out beds entirely.

That is not good enough.

Please contact your representatives today — it takes minutes at writetothem.com — and ask them to push for rehabilitation beds to be reinstated in the system. Patients deserve a safe route home. Our hospitals need the breathing space. And communities like ours deserve solutions that actually work for us.

From left – Susan Ikin of the Rainbow Foundation, Llyr Gruffydd MS and Councillor Marc Jones. Plans to re-open Penley community hospital by ...

27/05/2026

It’s been a strange few weeks as Wales adjusts to the new political scene and gives our new representatives time to settle into their roles. But it seems the purdah pause is well and truly over for our health boards.

The “consultations” postponed during the election are back underway and, as far as we can tell, the direction of travel remains unchanged.

In this week’s stakeholder bulletin from BCUHB, three options for the future of Penley have been announced. Not one includes reopening the inpatient beds.

Meanwhile, in Tywyn, a fourth balanced room has been announced, although none of the previous attendees have received the financial information they requested at the previous meeting, which they felt was imperative before taking a vote on any options for the future of the hospital.

Maesteg has still not been given a clear commitment that community beds will be restored, and the promised health and wellbeing hub has yet to materialise.

In Rhyl, residents are still waiting to see visible construction progress on the promised Royal Alexandra development, including its 14-bed ready-to-go-home reablement unit.

At the same time, the new Cabinet Minister for Health and Care has pledged to cut NHS waiting times and improve access to ambulance and emergency department services - both problems heavily impacted by the lack of available beds across Wales.

So why are health boards continuing to move away from local bed provision?

Help us make the message clear.

Please write to your representatives and help them understand the necessity and urgency of step-down care beds across Wales.

Comment below for a template letter in English or Welsh.

You can find your representatives by entering your postcode at www.writetothem.com.

26/05/2026

Thank you Darren Millar, we very much support this call to action. North Wales alone has lost 20% of its beds over the past 15-20 years and the situation in the 3 major hospitals A&E departments is unsustainable and systemically cruel to both staff and patients.

If you haven’t already, please help by writing to your local representatives, council and Senedd, and asking for an increase in step-down community beds to ease the pressure on A&E. Comment for a template.

You can find your representatives by entering your postcode at www.writetothem.com

16/05/2026

Heartening to hear First Minister Rhun ap Iorwerth speak about creating a health service fit for the future, and putting health and care on a more sustainable path for Wales.

But we know that can’t happen without two things: a proper workforce plan, and the step-down care needed so patients can get into our major hospitals when they need them and return home safely when they’re ready.

If we are serious about fixing flow through our hospitals, reducing pressure on staff, and caring for people closer to home, then we must invest long term in putting beds back into our communities.

Now is the time to make sure our new representatives understand how urgent this is.
Please write to your representatives and ask them to support community beds and step-down care across Wales.

Contact us if you’d like a template letter or help finding the right contact details.

14/05/2026

Congratulations to Mabon ap Gwynfor on being named Cabinet Secretary for Health and Care for Wales yesterday.
Here he is earlier this year at Ysbyty Tywyn in southern Gwynedd, speaking about the importance of the step-down care system and the fight to reopen the Dyfi Ward.

Now that Wales’ representatives are in place and our new First Minister has said his bosses are the people of Wales, let’s make sure our government knows what we want them working on. It’s time to get emailing, writing, and filling those inboxes — flooding Cardiff with the message:

⚪ Corridor care is not acceptable.
⚪ The crisis in A&E cannot continue.
⚪ Wales needs our community beds reopened where possible, and replaced where it’s not.

Comment below and we’ll send you a letter template in English or Welsh.

This is about caring for our community and putting healthcare back where it belongs — at the heart of the communities it serves.