It is through this transformation that the health board believes it can support the delivery of the NHS Wales decarbonisation strategy. At its heart our strategy is to provide services closer to home and rebalance our system to one focused on prevention and early intervention. This, we believe, is not only better for patients but will also impact less on the environment.
Our current buildings, particularly Glangwili, are amongst the oldest and least efficient in Wales. The plans we have for new and improved facilities offer the opportunity to radically reduce the carbon footprint and environmental impacts of our estate. The design of new buildings will be what is referred to as ‘smart’ or ‘intelligent.’ By this, we mean they can support provision of technology and collection of data, which supports and improves the operational running and security of the buildings. Smart buildings create environments that can interact with the people within them, learn from them, and adapt to their changing needs. Information management systems in buildings, can increase comfort, efficiency, resilience, and safety. They can integrate lighting, power, security, fire safety, heating, ventilation, and air conditioning.
We want our communities to be involved in designing our buildings, and when the new Urgent and Planned Care Hospital is built and the rest of our estate improved, we want our facilities to feel like they are public assets, open to the community; and connected to the local natural environment. Indeed, we see an opportunity, through adopting ‘biophilic’ design principles for the new hospital and other sites, to provide a calmer and more pleasant environment for patients and staff, which will benefit care reducing recovery times and medication use.
As part of the PBC the importance of transport is recognised, and the Health Board has an ambition to support the transition to low carbon and active travel. We are aware that many households in Hywel Dda do not benefit from access to a car and we are working with Transport for Wales to maximise the opportunity for patients, visitors, and staff to utilise public transport to access our services.