Betsi move some vascular surgeries to England after ‘incident’

Some major operations will no longer be going ahead in north Wales, a health board has announced.

Betsi Cadwaladr health board said it was pausing its provision of planned and emergency open abdominal aortic aneurism (AAA) surgery to help improve its other care.

The health board confirmed there had been an “incident”, but said the decision was not based solely on this and other vascular care would continue as normal.

About 10 to 15 patients per year will have to travel across the border to have their surgery in England.

Vascular services diagnose and treat people for problems with arteries, veins or circulation, and are often used by patients who have other health issues, such as diabetes.

An abdominal aortic aneurysm (AAA) is a swelling in the aorta, the main artery carrying blood from the heart to the rest of the body.

It can be life-threatening if not found early.

Carol Shillabeer, chief executive, said the health board worked closely with vascular experts in Wales and the across the UK to reach its decision.

She said patients awaiting this surgery would be able to have it carried out at the Royal Stoke University Hospital in Stoke-on-Trent “in the short term”.

“Our collaboration with Stoke is long-standing and this builds on the strong partnership approach in place,” she said.

“We will always be transparent about the challenges of providing this very specialist element of vascular services to the north Wales population and this pause forms part of ongoing reviews to continue delivering safe services.”

The health board said it was contacting the “very small number” of patients affected to discuss options.

AAA surgery accounts for 0.2% of annual vascular service activity, the health board added, and about 6.5% of vascular surgical procedures.

Complex vascular services were centralised to Ysbyty Glan Clwyd in April 2019, having previously been split between Ysbyty Gwynedd in Bangor and Wrexham Maelor Hospital.

The service has been under scrutiny since then and, in 2022, the Royal College of Surgeons (RCS) found risks to patients’ safety in several areas, concluding that in some cases, clinicians “were possibly working outside the limits of their competence”.

In the same year, Health Inspectorate Wales (HIW) categorised the service as “requiring significant improvement”.

Last year, that status was de-escalated by HIW who said the quality of care was getting better, though more improvement was needed.