THERE is a need for beds in smaller Gwent hospitals to be used to support the work of larger, "acute" sites, a new report claims.

The larger Royal Gwent and Nevill Hall hospitals in Newport and Abergav-enny need the support of smaller hospitals, said Paul Williams, chief executive of Bro Morgannwg NHS Trust, who has written a report on capacity across the NHS in Wales - A Question of Balance.

It is a problem reflected throughout Welsh NHS trusts, Mr Williams adds. He said: "When people come in who are acutely ill they have to be in somewhere like the Royal Gwent Hospital. It is only later on when they are medically fit that they can be moved on."

But a spokesman for Gwent NHS Trust said the trust used their smaller hospitals on that basis regularly.

Mr Williams gave a presentation to the Assembly's health and social services committee on Wednesday and agreed with Torfaen AM Lynne Neagle that Gwent had a particular problem with hospital beds.

Mrs Neagle called on the Assembly to focus its resources for improving capacity in hospitals on "the real problems in Gwent".

She said there were less beds per thousand of the population in Gwent than anywhere else in Wales, despite significant increases in funding.

"What I want to see is any efforts the Assembly makes to improve capacity in Wales targeted at areas where capacity is the biggest problem," she later told the Argus. "It is no good pouring resources into places like Ceredigion, they need to focus on Gwent and I will be pursuing that further with the health minister Jane Hutt."

She added: "Despite record investment we aren't seeing the improvements we need to see, and waiting times remain high, particularly for orthopaedics, which a lot of people come to my surgery about."

Jocelyn Davies, AM for South Wales East, said that she had her own operation cancelled at the beginning of the year. And she said she knew of one woman who had her hysterectomy cancelled five times.

"She booked three months off work five times and her employer arranged cover for her to be off five times," Mrs Davies said.

Mr Williams' report says the equivalent of 479 new beds are needed if the NHS in Wales is to be brought into balance.

But it also stresses that not just beds are needed, but a mixture of measures that will extend the effective working capacity of the NHS and its partners. Mr Williams said bed occupancy rates in Welsh hospitals were at 98 per cent, when they should be between 82 and 85 per cent.