Q & A
What new services will the hospital provide for children?
The Children's Hospital for Wales will bring new purpose-designed buildings and facilities for children's services. Phase one will bring children's cancer services to the new site and so improve access for these children to other specialist children's services including paediatric intensive care and paediatric surgery. It will also provide modern wards for children under the care of paediatric medical specialists and provide much better accommodation for parents to stay on the wards with their children.
The next phases will provide dedicated children's operating theatres and associated recovery areas (at the moment children share with adults), along with a new child friendly area within the radiology department, improved outpatient facilities and, it is intended, a Welsh Institute for Child Health to improve training for specialists in children's services and research into childhood illness and health.
Will children still have to go to England for care after the Hospital is built?
The Children's Hospital will provide a world class environment for both children and staff and enhance the quality of the comprehensive range of specialist children's services already provided by paediatricians and other specialists based in Cardiff. Without this development - the physical infrastructure within which these services can develop - it would become progressively more difficult to sustain existing services and attract and retain appropriately skilled staff. The new children's hospital, together with the investment envisaged by the recent SHSCW review, will secure these specialist services for the children of Wales, in Wales, for the future.
A small number of low volume services need to be provided in partnership with English centres. This is because professional skills can only be maintained and developed with a certain minimum throughput of highly specialised conditions or procedures. Children in Wales deserve the best skills available.
Paediatric cardiac surgery is an example of this. Most cardiac care is provided by a team of specialists who, based in Cardiff, perform clinics throughout South and Mid Wales. The small number of children needing heart surgery receive this in Bristol from skilled surgeons who work in partnership with the paediatric cardiologists in Wales.
Will most children need to go to the Children's Hospital in Cardiff if they are ill?
No. Most children's illnesses are dealt with by GPs and their teams or if necessary by community or hospital paediatricians and specialists, based in all the major centres around Wales.
The specialist services in Cardiff provide support for the more uncommon and complex problems, for those requiring very specialised investigation, or for children who are particularly unwell. These services are almost always provided in partnership with paediatricians in local hospitals. In many cases the Cardiff specialists provide local outpatient clinics in district general hospitals. Further development of partnerships and "care pathways" will actually mean that more children can be safely cared for locally than at present.
Will the Children's Hospital take funds away from local hospitals around Wales?
The Children's Hospital for Wales is not a replacement for local facilities. Many local children's services also need investment. Unfortunately there has been little investment in the past in very specialised services for children. This will be addressed by the Children's Hospital and by the recommendations of the SHSCW review of specialist children's services.
There is already a proposal to centralise children's neurosurgery in Cardiff. Isn't the Children's Hospital the thin end of the wedge in terms of taking services away from other centres?
As part of the SHSCW report this proposal is now subject to consultation. If the service is relocated to Cardiff, it would be provided in due course within the Children's Hospital, but the proposal is not contingent on the Children's Hospital, nor does it derive from the Children's Hospital project.
Isn't the new Children's Hospital really a Children's Hospital for Cardiff and not for Wales?
Not at all. Large numbers of children from throughout Southern and Mid Wales already make use of the specialised services provided in Cardiff or provided by specialists based in Cardiff. Almost 15,000 children from outside Cardiff and the Vale of Glamorgan were seen in Cardiff last year
For reasons of geography and communication, the population of North Wales gets most of its specialist services from the Royal Liverpool Children's Hospital. However we believe that the development of the Children's Hospital and a Welsh Institute for Child Health will provide a new focus on children's health, life and wellbeing that will benefit all children living in Wales.
Why is the Children's Hospital for Wales to be partially funded by charity?
The Noah's Ark Appeal was launched to accelerate the development of the first phase of the hospital. Without the Appeal phase one would have had to compete with other projects for Assembly funding. Generous support from the public of Wales has allowed the project to get off the ground. It has brought about a sense of ownership amongst the population and has demonstrated to the National Assembly a groundswell of opinion in favour of building this important national facility.
The Assembly's decision to provide £4.5m to allow the first phase to be completed, once the charity reached its target of £5.0m was very welcome.
When will it be completed?
The contract to design and build the first children's hospital in Wales was awarded to Laing Construction Wales and West Ltd in January 2003. Phase One of the Children's Hospital for Wales is now complete and the hospital admitted its first patients in February 2005. The final phase of the hospital will contain enable many more children to be treated at the Children's Hospital for Wales. Building work on this next phase cannot begin until the Welsh Assembly Government gives the project the green light.