WORK is set to start this month on the demolition of much of the historic former Tredegar General Hospital, with the site to host a multi-million pound health and wellbeing centre to serve thousands of patients in the town.

The wrecking ball was scheduled to start swinging in March, but work has been delayed by the coronavirus pandemic.

Arrangements are being finalised however, for work to begin on May 11, with the contractor's staff set to wear protective equipment appropriate to the task.

The original double-gabled entrance block to the general hospital will be retained as part of the new Tredegar Health and Wellbeing Centre.

Tredegar Hospital opened in 1904 and played a key role in the free-at-the-point-of-delivery healthcare system developed in the town in the late 19th and early 20th Centuries, which came to be known as the Tredegar Workmen's Medical Aid Society. This was Aneurin Bevan's blueprint for the National Health Service.

The hospital became part of the newly-founded NHS in 1948, but has been empty since 2010, when its services transferred to the then newly opened Ysbyty Aneurin Bevan in Ebbw Vale.

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But the hospital's historic value as a crucial part of the aforementioned Medical Aid Society's range of services - it boasted more than 20,000 members at its pre-NHS peak - has been acknowledged by the retention of its Park Row entrance block in the new health and wellbeing centre.

The centre, costing £15.7m, will provide a range of primary and community health and care services, and will replace existing outdated and unsuitable health facilities in the town.

As well as GPs and other healthcare professionals, and dental services, it is earmarked to include a community pharmacist, midwifery, health visiting and school nursing services, a Flying Start base, wellbeing support services, and social support such as Citizens Advice and debt advice.

Problems with a land sale - revealed in the Argus yesterday - have prompted an eleventh-hour change to part of the plans for the centre, but the project remains on course to deliver much-needed new health facilities for thousands of patients.

The bulk of the funding is set to be provided this year (£7.66m) and in 2021/22 (£5.91m), and the aim is that the new centre will be ready to welcome its first patients early in 2022.