The long road to opening the Grange hospital one year ago

The hospital opened to treat the most seriously ill and injured patients in the Aneurin Bevan University Health Board region.

The project received £350 million in Welsh Government funding, with a further £10 million investment to get up and running ahead of schedule.

Plans for the project as part of a wider resetting of Gwent’s health services were made public - albeit not in any great detail – in 2003.

The early planning and consultation for Gwent’s specialist and critical care centre was done before the 2007-08 financial crash, but in late 2008, health minister Edwina Hart suspended the project over economic concerns.

In March 2011, the project got off the ground again, and soon afterwards, detailed planning resumed.

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Eventually, the plans were formally backed by then-health secretary Vaughan Gething in autumn 2016.

Speaking in March 2019 about the decision to green-light the project, Mr Gething said: “It was a difficult conversation with (Welsh Government) colleagues about that choice, but ultimately it was the right thing to do - to invest £350m into not only an excellent building, but a new health and care facility to change the way healthcare is delivered in Gwent and across south Wales.”

Then health minister Vaughan Gething cutting the first ground at the Grange site. Picture: Aneurin Bevan University Health Board

Building work started on the new hospital on July 17, 2017. Mr Gething cut the first ground on the building of a brand new hospital in Llanfrechfa.

Part of the hospital was finished in April 2020 – almost a year early – to house hundreds of beds for use to cope with a possible surge in demand at the height of the first wave of coronavirus. Fortunately, these were not needed.

Following the early opening of part of the hospital, an additional £10 million in Welsh Government funding was granted to enable the hospital to fully open in autumn 2020.

And, as the second coronavirus wave built up in Wales, the state-of-the-art hospital opened up on November 17, 2020.

The Grange University Hospital opened in November 2020.

The Grange has become Gwent’s only hospital for accident and emergency (A&E) care – with The Royal Gwent, Nevill Hall, and Ysbyty Ystrad Fawr operating minor injury units.

The opening of the Grange also marked a change in how paediatric care is delivered in Gwent, with all children aged under one year old being seen at the Grange – regardless of how seriously ill they are.

Children aged one or over who require emergency treatment will go to the Grange, where specialist children’s doctors and nurses will be based. Similarly, all children’s hospital beds and the Children’s Emergency Assessment Unit will be at the Grange.

Staff moving equipment into the neonatal unit. Picture: Aneurin Bevan University Health Board.

“It's much better to have a purpose-built facility where we've centralised the services,” said Dr Tim Rogerson, clinical director and consultant in emergency medicine at ABUHB, upon the opening of the Grange.

“We've got a senior level of decision-making – we've got consultants here, late into the night, so actually the care you'll receive in this facility will be of a standard that those extra few minutes of a journey won't actually affect you in the long-run.

“You'll have a better outcome.

“For quite a few years, stroke care has been centralised at the Royal Gwent. You might have a stroke in the middle of Abergavenny, but for years you'll [have been taken] to the Royal Gwent.

“And that's going to be the same now – we're centralising on one site and hopefully increasing the standard of care we can deliver for all of the conditions that present here.”