Plans to re-open Penley community hospital by a local charity have been backed by Plaid Cymru’s north Wales MS.

Llyr Gruffydd visited the Rainbow Foundation main site in Penley, to discuss the future of the community hospital, which is next door to the charity’s Ageing Well Centre of Excellence

Penley Community Hospital was closed ‘temporarily’ last Christmas and Betsi Cadwaladr health board is undertaking a consultation on whether to close the site permanently.

Mr Gruffydd has been an outspoken critic of the decision, saying it was done without warning to either staff or patients. He also criticised the health board for closing community step-down facilities when the Maelor hospital was under such pressure.

Mr Gruffydd said: “The health board has not been straight with staff or the community over Penley – they’ve misled about the numbers of patients using the hospital when it closed and don’t seem interested in using community facilities such as this to ease pressure on Wrexham Maelor Hospital, where corridor care and lengthy delays for admissions has become the unfortunate and unacceptable norm.

“That’s why I was interested to visit Penley and learn more about the proposal by the Rainbow Foundation to take on the hospital and re-open it as a 12-bed facility that could complement the existing work being done on the adjacent site. This is a detailed plan that, incredibly, has been put to the health board back in June 2024 and gained clinical support. The plan would have reduced prolonged delays in hospital and reduced delays in transfers of care – directly addressing the acute problems facing the Maelor in terms of A&E and trolley wait times. 

“The intention would be to enable patients who don’t need to be in a district general hospital like the Maelor to be in a community-based rehabilitation and reablement centre closer to home. I’m at a loss as to why senior management at the health board did not take the proposal forward rather than making their decision to close overnight.

“We heard of case studies where an 89-year-old woman who was admitted to the Maelor after a minor fall spent a further 11 months there despite having no medical needs because of a lack of step-down provision in this part of rural Wrexham.

“Every year about 3,700 operations are cancelled at Wrexham Maelor Hospital – the BMA estimates about a third of planned operations are cancelled because of a lack of beds. This is because around one in six (17%) of those beds are occupied by patients who do not need to be in the acute sector. Community alternatives are vital and Penley, which serves a large area of south Wrexham can be a part of this.

“This proposal, called the Penley Pathway Project, seems to be a sensible way to re-open the hospital and make maximum use of the established rehabilitation services already operating on site.”

Mr Gruffydd added: “I would urge Betsi’s senior management to look in detail at this proposal – it could be an important piece in the bigger picture as we seek to address the very real pressures facing our NHS. If we don’t start thinking outside the traditional silos, we will fail the very many people who are falling between the gaps in terms of health. We need to reduce waiting times, improve recovery times and make greater use of these community facilities not mothball them.”