New £360,000,000 hospital was built without permission for an A&E
A £358 million hospital has been open since 2020 without proper planning permission for its A&E.
Health chiefs at The Grange University Hospital in Cwmbran, South Wales, failed to plan for ‘walk in’ patients so didn’t seek planning permission.
They assumed casualty patients would be ‘triaged’ – arriving from another hospital or transferred by ambulance or helicopter.
A car park has now been built by the Aneurin Bevan University Health Board and planning permission has been sought so patients can ‘self present’.
Torfaen council planning consultant Duncan Smith said: ‘The hospital originally had planning permission to deal with triage patients.
‘Since coming into operation people have basically come up to the door to use the hospital as walk in patients, that hasn’t got permission.
‘The majority arrive by car. The unauthorised use has been in place since 2020 and this application seeks to authorise that use.’
The A&E department has also been granted additional seating, new patient assessment rooms and an additional electrocardiogram room.
Despite plans being approved, some councillors took issue with the lack of parking at the hospital.
Councillor Karl Gauden said neighbours were fed up of ‘hospital staff using Crown Road as a rat run’.
He said: ‘Quite frankly residents in Llanfrechfa have had a guts full of people parking on their street.’
The hospital was given an extra £10 million to open a year earlier than planned to help patients during the pandemic.
But it was found to be putting patients at risk in 2022 when it was visited by health inspectors.
Patients waited up to 15 hours in the back of ambulances and in a ‘very small, cramped and unfit for purpose’ waiting area, inspectors found.
The hospital vowed to improve while it was given approved planning permission to extend its waiting area.
A spokesperson for Aneurin Bevan University Health Board said: ‘When the Health Board submitted a planning application to build a specialist and critical care centre on the site of Llanfrechfa Grange in July 2012, it was intended to treat critically unwell patients generally arriving via ambulance or helicopter, or after a telephone triage.
‘This application was approved in 2013 and The Grange University Hospital has been operating with this permission in place.
‘However, since the hospital opened early in 2020 to respond to the Covid-19 pandemic, overall demand has increased and more patients have been self-presenting to the emergency department.
‘Not all of these patients will have been directed by 111 or 999; however, we encourage this approach.
‘In response to these evolving clinical requirements and the growing needs of our population, we have now been granted permission for a variation of use for the existing department, as well as approval for the expansion of the department.’
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