Since 2015 the Health Board have provided a gold standard community heart service for patients with heart failure.
The service saves lives; saves people from having to stay in General Hospitals; and saves the Health Board a lot of money.
There are approximately 8,000 known heart failure patients across north Wales, and its estimated that there's another 8,000 that are unknown.
These community clinics treat dozens of patients every month, and those in centres closer to their homes. The current service saves around £1.5m a year for the Health Board. Expaniding the service across the whole region could save them up to £5m in total a year.
Unfortunately the Board have failed to commit to the service's long term future, instead choosing to review it every six months. This means that the staff working in the service have no job certainty, resulting in staff moving on to other jobs and failure to recruit. This threatens the whole future of the service.
The staff and patients need certainty. We are therefore calling on the Health Minister and the Health Board to provide that certainty by providing the long term funding necessary to maintain this world class service in north Wales.
Read more here.