Bevan Health and Wellbeing Centre welcomes first patients

The £19 million Bevan Health & Wellbeing Centre is the new home of Glan-yr-Afon Surgery, Tredegar Medical Practice and Tredegar Health Centre Pharmacy and welcomed its first patients today, January 22.

It is built on the former site of the Tredegar General Hospital and in the hometown of Aneurin Bevan who served as Ebbw Vale's MP for 31 years.

As health minister in Clement Attlee's government, Mr Bevan spearheaded the creation of the National Health Service in the post-war years.

The centre is named after the Ebbw Vale MP who is credited with founding the NHS (Image: ABUHB)

He took the idea from the Tredegar Workmen's Medical Aid Society, which amassed a membership of more than 20,000 before the Second World War.

In 1947, Mr Bevan said: "All I am doing is extending to the entire population of Britain the benefits we had in Tredegar for a generation or more. We are going to Tredegar-ise you."

'New life'

Nicola Prygodzicz, chief executive of Aneurin Bevan University Health Board, said: “The Bevan Health and Wellbeing Centre is a fundamental element of our future service model within Blaenau Gwent, helping the health board deliver a wide range of services closer to home for the local community.

“As the existing hospital was a very important part of local residents’ heritage, the heart of the building has been retained to ensure that Aneurin Bevan’s legacy remains a significant part of the town.

“We are so proud of this new state-of-the-art facility which will allow patients to access a wide range of health and wellbeing services under one roof in the heart of their own community.”

Inside the £19 million centre in Tredegar (Image: ABUHB)

Jason Taylor, regional director at Kier Construction Western & Wales, said he was “delighted” to have handed over the first phase of the project which he hopes to prove an “invaluable” facility for residents in Tredegar.

"Working to breathe new life into this special building where the NHS was first conceived by Aneurin Bevan has been a real honour and we look forward to delivering the remaining phases of the project over the coming months,” he said.

The second phase of the development will start in the next few weeks, the health board has said, with the old health centre being demolished to make way for new car parking space.

During this phase, additional services such as dental, health visiting, podiatry and lymphedema will also open to the public.

The Aneurin Bevan health board expects the centre to be fully operational by the end of 2024.