20/08/2026
Thank you BEDS - End corridor care in A and E for your support and helping us to spread the word about our Rainbow Pathway proposal for Penley Hospital.
If you believe that people deserve the right support at the right time, closer to home, then please make sure you take part in the Health Boards consultation to make your voice heard.
Responses from the previous consultation will not be carried forward, so anyone wishing share their views must submit a new response.
You can access BCUHB Consultation at: www.bcuhb.nhs.wales/get-involved/shaping-the-future-of-penley-hospital/
Find out more about Rainbow Pathway on our website at: www.rainbowfndn.org.uk/penley-hospital/
*please see comments for info on Penley consultation*
This week, crowds of concerned members of the public spilled out onto the street at a consultation meeting about the future of community beds at Ysbyty Ystradgynlais.
In Cwm Taf, hundreds have taken to the streets to advocate for the future of Maesteg Community Hospital.
The people of Aberystwyth linked arms for miles along the pavements to protect services at Bronglais.
And in Tywyn, public meeting after public meeting has been attended by growing numbers of people valiantly fighting to keep beds in their isolated — but vital — seaside hospital.
The public of Wales do not need convincing.
They have waited on the phone for GP appointments and Out of Hours services.
They have been to A&E and seen the queues in the corridors.
They know that inpatient beds across Wales have fallen dramatically while the population continues to rise.
It is not complicated maths.
Yet health boards seem determined to slash short-term costs in favour of long-term suffering — a policy that has not worked over the last two decades.
None more so than Betsi Cadwaladr University Health Board, the largest and worst-performing health board in the country.
We have new Ministers in Government who have said time and time again that they want to make a difference.
Now, as the public, we must lend them our voices and demand that health boards look longer-term — and save our inpatient beds and vital local services before future generations are left to bear the cost of short-sighted accountancy.
Penley can be part of the answer
In Wrexham, where the district hospital is under immense pressure, Penley Community Hospital inpatient ward has been closed pending consultation since Christmas Eve 2024, when elderly patients were suddenly moved following a shock closure by the Health Board.
Now there is an opportunity to get those beds back in action.
Not as a token gesture.
Not just to reopen a building.
But as part of a genuinely forward-thinking service that supports people to recover safely, regain independence and get home.
The Rainbow Foundation — a charity with more than 30 years’ experience supporting reablement and independent living for older people — has planned and costed a vision for Penley that could lead the way in showing what community hospitals are capable of achieving for our NHS.
The Rainbow Pathway would support people after illness or hospital treatment, help them regain independence, offer respite support for carers and provide compassionate end-of-life care closer to home.
A handful of beds in Wrexham is not the whole answer to the pressures facing Wrexham Maelor.
But it is a fantastic start.
And it is an affordable one.
Wrexham, your community needs you.
Let the Health Board know what is important: local beds, proper reablement support, independence for older people, support for carers, and the chance for people to recover with dignity closer to home.
