Latest update on disruption and changes to services at Princess of Wales Hospital

The health board has spent around £20m maintaining the Prince of Wales Hospital in the last five years, prioritising those issues that had been identified as requiring immediate attention to safeguard patients and staff. This has includes repair work to the roof to address isolated leaks.

However, when the hospital suffered a more sustained and widespread series of leaks last month we immediately undertook work, involving specialist contactors, to carry out more invasive, comprehensive structural surveys of the roof. Carrying our these surveys has required the erection of a complicated network of scaffolding to enable roofing experts to safely access the roof. The serious internal problems with the roof were not visible prior to this survey being carried out.

The roof replacement work began in November 2024 and is being carried out in stages. This means that as sections of the roof are replaced, we can move services and patients back into those areas while we carry on with the roof replacement work elsewhere.

The first phase of roof replacement work is now complete and maternity and neonatal care is returning to the hospital this month (February).   

This is a very substantial programme of work that we know will take many months to complete. It is likely that the work will be completed in late summer 2025.

Due to the condition of the roof on the main building at the Princess of Wales Hospital, it has been necessary to move patients out of wards on the first floor. This means accommodating around 200 patients in alternative settings.

While this is an unusual situation, the NHS is very used to responding to unexpected events so we are confident that we will be able to make the changes that are required to ensure our patients can continue to be cared for properly and safely.

We are very grateful to our patients, the public and our staff for their understanding and cooperation as we manage this complex situation.

We have transferred nearly 200 patients from the wards on the first floor of the Princess of Wales Hospital to alternative settings to continue with their ongoing care and recovery.

It has been also been necessary to close the six main operating theatres at the Princess of Wales Hospital. Patients who were booked to undergo a planned major operation at the POW Hospital, will instead have their operation within another of our hospitals.

We are continuing to provide day surgery at POW. A day surgery procedure is one that does not require the patient to stay in the hospital overnight after their surgery.

The intensive care unit at POW Hospital has also been moved to a new space within the same hospital minimising disruption for those patients who require the greatest medical support.

Yes. In order to ensure we can provide the best possible care and treatment for patients, and to safely accommodate those patients who are more unwell and require a bed, some patients have been transferred from POW to other hospitals run by our health board.

This means that some services provided from these hospitals have been moved to other places too.

We know how important it is for patients to see family and friends while they are staying in hospital. We understand that it may be more difficult for people to visit patients in a different hospital and we are grateful for people’s understanding as we respond to this extraordinary situation and keep their loved-ones safe.

We are working hard to minimise disruption to planned (or ‘elective’) surgery. However, because we cannot run all of our operating theatres in POW and have fewer beds in which patients can recover, it is necessary to postpone some procedures and tests.

Urgent appointments, including those for suspected or diagnosed cancers, will not be postponed.  

We only ever postpone operations and tests as a last resort and when this is in the best interest of patients. We understand how distressing it can be for patients and their families when an operation doesn’t go ahead as planned and work hard to rearrange appointments to the earliest possible date.

We can assure patients whose operations/procedures are postponed or moved to another site that that this will not affect their position on the waiting list.

We will always contact patients directly if it is necessary to change the date of an operation or other procedure.

If, during this period of works, a patient arrives at POW hospital and is assessed as requiring certain types of specialist emergency surgery, the expert clinical teams at the hospital will make the patient stable and arrange for them to be transferred urgently to another hospital to receive the care and treatment they need.

Transferring patients between hospitals, to enable them to receive specialist attention, is not unusual in the NHS and happens often when someone has suffered a serious trauma. 

Most patients who have suffered a serious trauma will arrive at hospital by ambulance, and would be taken directly to the hospital that is best equipped to treat them. 

To ensure we can safely move patients from POW to other hospitals in a timely manner we have commissioned a specialist vehicle from the ambulance service. This means these patients can be move under expert care, without having an impact upon the capacity of the ambulance service.

The emergency department (ED) is not affected by the issues we are managing in the older, first floor part of the main hospital.

The most important thing you can do is stay informed as to how these changes may affect you or your family. You can visit our website for the latest information, where we will regularly update this FAQ, or follow us on social media on Facebook or X.

We also need your cooperation, patience and support as we manage this unprecedented situation. Please remember that our staff are doing everything they can to minimise the disruption experienced by patients, the public and colleagues. Speculation or inaccurate information shared on social media is upsetting for staff and can make it more difficult for us to keep patients and other informed and safe.

We are very proud of the way our staff have responded to this situation and also want to thank the public for their support and understanding.