THERE is no miracle cure for the problem of handling emergency pressures on the NHS, Assembly Health Minister Jane Hutt (pictured) warns.

But she is confident that extra funding, good planning, and the dedication of staff will minimise difficulties next winter.

Updated guidance has been issued to the NHS and its partners to help them cope with such pressures, backed up with £35 million of assembly funding to follow last year's £40m.

That cash funded dozens of new consultants, medical and critical care beds, and rapid response teams and community-based rehabilitation programmes designed to keep people out of hospital where possible, or allow them to be discharged more quickly.

Dealing with emergency admissions while trying to ensure routine surgery does not have to be postponed due to a lack of beds for surgical patients are two key aims. During the winter of 2000, the NHS was almost crippled by demand, worsened by a flu outbreak.

Last year, helped by the extra funding and far fewer flu cases, the service just about coped.

One of the main projects planned in Gwent for next winter is a revamp of wards and beds at Newport's Royal Gwent Hospital, to try to increase the amount of beds available.

The final phase of this project will involve the development of a medical assessment unit, to allow patients to be assessed more quickly and speedier decisions made about where they should be treated. This project should be in place for winter 2002.

Gwent Healthcare Trust also hopes to have a dedicated coronary care unit up and running at Abergavenny's Nevill Hall Hospital by winter 2002.

Trust bosses also aim to work with social services departments across Gwent to try to solve the problem of bed blocking. Lack of money for social services to fund care packages is a big problem.

Trust and health authority chiefs are today discussing a range of measures for meeting the challenges of winter, including new consultants and a number of bed management issues.

Emergency admissions into Gwent's acute hospitals were up by 3 per cent in April and May, compared with the same period last year.

Dr Bob Broughton, Welsh secretary of the British Medical Association, welcomes additional funding for the NHS in Wales, but says the only solution is "a long- term programme to improve the manpower crisis, increase the number of hospital beds and extend the technology in hospitals."