Health chiefs are set to reconsider plans for major changes to hospital services in Powys after "significant concern" was raised by members of the public.
At a meeting today, Wednesday, September 25 Powys Teaching Health Board chairman Carl Cooper explained the rethink over the decisions.
At their last board meeting in July members agreed to stop out of hours treatment at the Minor Injury Units at hospitals in the county.
They also agreed that patients should be grouped together in hospitals according to specific need.
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This would see two hospital wards in Llanidloes, at the town's War Memorial Hospital, and Bronllys specialise in getting patients fit and ready to go home.
Patients that need rehabilitation following illnesses or conditions such as strokes would be looked after in Brecon, at the Breconshire War Memorial Hospital, and at Newtown's Montgomeryshire County Infirmary.
The temporary service changes were supposed to be implemented in September for a trial period of six months and were agreed as a consequence of the dire financial position of the health board.
The health board is already predicting that it will be posting a budget deficit of just under £23 million this year.
Dr Cooper said: “At our last meeting we reported that we were embarking on engagement in relation to decisions that we made as a board.
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“Very quickly in that engagement process and in our conversation with Llais the citizen’s voice body, what we heard is that there was significant concern in relation to the process.
“So, we took that very seriously and changed the process by extending the engagement timetable.
“Instead of engaging on decisions that were already made, we changed that, and were engaging on proposals.
“When we meet on October 10, we will be discussing the proposals.”
He told board members that the updated reports will contain the “analysis” and “findings” that come out of the consultation exercise.
Dr Cooper said: “As a result of our listening and learning, things change and we alter accordingly.”
The board will meet on October 10 to decide the proposals.
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