{"id":188340,"date":"2025-10-09T15:30:09","date_gmt":"2025-10-09T15:30:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/188340\/"},"modified":"2025-10-09T15:30:09","modified_gmt":"2025-10-09T15:30:09","slug":"hywel-dda-health-board-apology-for-epilepsy-service-closure","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/188340\/","title":{"rendered":"Hywel Dda health board apology for epilepsy service closure"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The Public Services Ombudsman for Wales, Michelle Morris, upheld the complaint and also said that when the service ended in June 2021, the health board did not review patients&#8217; needs in a timely manner.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">She said it was a serious injustice to patients and their families and said the health board must take urgent action to ensure vulnerable people and their carers received the care and support they needed.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Ms Morris said the lack of provision, poor communication and slow response to complaints had caused significant distress.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;Carers described feeling abandoned and unsupported, unsure who to contact for advice or assistance, while having to navigate a lengthy complaints process with no clear outcome,&#8221; she said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Ms Morris highlighted a similar report about Hywel Dda health board in 2021 about poor service planning and the failure to act quickly to make arrangements for patients when a service ended.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">She said it was concerning there were similar issues again now in a different service area.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">She also said other health boards in Wales provided a learning disability epilepsy service but there was no evidence that Hywel Dda intended, or was able, to provide a service or ensure a pathway was in place to refer patients elsewhere.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Public Services Ombudsman for Wales, Michelle Morris, upheld the complaint and also said that when the service&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":188341,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[43],"tags":[102,2960,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-188340","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-healthcare","8":"tag-health","9":"tag-healthcare","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/188340","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=188340"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/188340\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/188341"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=188340"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=188340"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=188340"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}