Prince Charles Hospital is based in Merthyr Tydfil close to the beautiful Brecon Beacons National Park. Our district general hospital sees a wide variety of presentations including trauma from the Heads of the Valleys Road and the local mountain biking attraction, Bike Park Wales. We see approx. 60,000 patients a year of which 13,000 are children.
We have a 4 bedded resus area with 3 adult and 1 paediatric space. Our new Paediatric emergency department has undergone a significant transformation to have a dedicated footprint with its waiting room and themed assessment spaces.
We have an ENP dedicated area within the ED footprint, with our ENPs also staffing our local minor injuries unit at Ysbyty Cwm Cynon (YCC). We also have a dedicated Emergency Physiotherapy team that runs acute injury clinics and also sees new patients alongside ENP colleagues.
We have a clinical pharmacy team dedicated to the ED led by Charlotte Curliss who has been working on new initiatives for the ED. We have several teams who provide an in-reach service to the ED including an Alcohol Liaison service supporting our population on a 7-day service.
We have two bespoke teaching timetables, one for our SHO grades and one for higher trainees. These include a dedicated period in the rota and a bespoke timetable for teaching.
There are currently three active clinical trials running at PCH; Draft-3, CoMiTED and Salvage which we are recruiting into. We have recently undertaken a large digitalisation project with all our clinical pathways and resources on the Eolas App, including our antimicrobial guidelines.
We have recently relocated into a new department which has allowed us access to a large seminar room to undertake teaching activities as well as establishing a new dedicated well-being room accessible to all staff.
Consultant staff:
- Dr Nil Hossain (Clinical Lead for PCH)
- Dr Eslyd Watson (PEM Lead)
- Dr Lucy Cunnane (ACCS lead)
- Dr Mateusz Szmidt (Trauma, Critical appraisal and US Lead)
- Dr Thomas Horgan (Governance lead)
- Dr Syed Gilani
- Dr Huw Williams
- Miss Ella Harrison-Hansley (Speciality Tutor and Well-Being Lead)
- Dr Ali Hafiz (Associate Specialist & US lead)
Senior Staff
- 6 x SAS
- 2 x ST3
- 6 x HSTs (ST4-6)
- 2x ACPs
Junior Staff
- 1 x ACCS
- 4 x GP
- 4 x FP2
- 2 x FP1
- 4 x JCF with a choice of speciality interests in USS, PEM, ITU/Anaesthetics, Medical Education, GUM, Global Health, Green-ED and Research, and the potential for a pre-hospital PHEM interest in the future.
Physiotherapists
- Emma Fox
- Nathan Davies
Our consultants cover the shop floor from 0800 to 22:30 on Mondays & Tuesdays, 0800 to 2000 on Wednesdays to Fridays. We are looking to increase this cover soon to 22:30. On Saturday and Sunday consultant shop floor cover is 0800 to 22:30. We have dedicated PEM Consultant cover in the Paediatric ED on Mondays and Tuesdays and are looking to expand this. We are actively looking for a further PEM consultant to join us. We currently have two consultants on the shopfloor on Monday & Tuesday evenings until 22:30 and are looking to expand this across the week with new appointments.
Our Rotas are designed with well-being as a number one priority. All rotas have SPA embedded within them for all trainees. We host our ST3 on a separate ST3 rota and they are budded up with an HST for future learning.
Rota Co-ordinator: Gareth Whitlock (Gareth.Whitlock@wales.nhs.uk)