Deeside Leisure Centre to become 250 bed temporary hospital

Deeside Leisure Centre is set to be the third location of a temporary hospital to treat North Wales residents with symptoms of COVID-19.

Around 250 additional beds will be made available to the NHS as part of the multi-agency partnership between Betsi Cadwaladr University Health Board, Flintshire County Council, Aura Leisure and Libraries, and Wrexham County Borough Council.

The third temporary hospital brings the total number of beds to be made available at temporary hospital locations in North Wales to around 850.

Venue Cymru in Llandudno will be converted to hold an additional 350 temporary beds, and Bangor University’s Canolfan Brailsford will provide a further 250 beds.

All three temporary hospitals will help prevent admissions to the Health Board’s three acute hospitals, and help patients who have received treatment at Ysbyty Gwynedd, Glan Clwyd Hospital and Wrexham Maelor Hospital to recover in order to return home.

Mark Polin, Chairman of Betsi Cadwaladr University Health Board, said: “We’re immensely grateful for the support we’ve received from Flintshire County Council, Aura Leisure and Libraries, and Wrexham County Borough Council to secure Deeside Leisure Centre as the third location for a temporary hospital in North Wales.

Indeed, all of our partners across North Wales are playing a vital role in helping ensure we have the capacity in place to prepare for a significant increase in the number of people who will need care in the coming weeks and months.

A significant amount has been achieved within just a matter of weeks.

Colleagues in the Health Board and in partner organisations are working around the clock to pull out all of the stops to help protect our communities.

“The scale of the task is significant but I am confident that working together, we can make the necessary rapid progress to bring all three sites into use within a month.”

In addition, work is also underway to deliver a further 1,000 beds within the three Health Board district general hospitals.

Colin Everett, Chief Executive, Flintshire County Council said: “The Council and AURA, our local leisure and libraries services partner, have stepped in to make Deeside Leisure Centre available as an emergency hospital to serve the communities of both Flintshire and Wrexham.

Both councils are providing project management and logistical support to fit-out the Centre in readiness for its new, temporary use.

We will give our Health Board every support to have the centre ready in good time for the expected peak in demand. This is a time for partners to pull together to protect and save lives. We are proud to play our part.”

Commenting, Alyn and Deeside AM Jack Sargeant said:

“This is is a real team effort and I want to thank everyone involved in making this happen. We must ensure that we have the capacity in North East Wales, to help everyone who needs it.

It is crucial that we all continue to do our bit and stay at home, protect the NHS and save lives”

As of today there are 573 confirmed Covid-19 patients and a further 399 people with suspected cases are currently being treated in hospitals across Wales.

Speaking at today’s Welsh Government press conference (full video below), NHS Wales Chief Executive, Andrew Goodall explained that of the 10,000 hospital and community beds available in any one day in total across Wales, 44 per cent – around 2850 – of acute hospital beds are currently available for use.

“As of today, all of our health boards are reporting their status as green or level one. We have four levels of system escalation up to red or level four,” said Mr Goodall.

“We are of course preparing for more people to be admitted to hospital, and there are many, many more people with coronavirus in the community who don’t need hospital treatments.

“We’ve been able to expand our critical care capacity now to 331 beds. Around 55 per cent of our critical care capacity is currently unoccupied and available.”

“One in five of those critical care beds are occupied by confirmed Covid-19 patients, and I would say that there is more pressure on critical care beds currently in the southeast of Wales.”

More than 6,000 additional beds are also set to be made available across Wales by turning stadiums and leisure centres into ‘field hospitals’.

This includes up 2,000 of these beds will be at the Principality Stadium in Cardiff, over 1,300 beds in the Swansea Bay area, more than 350 beds at Parker Scarlets in Llanelli, 350 beds at Venue Cymru and 350 beds at the new Grange University Hospital site.