MEMBERS of Gwynedd Council’s Cabinet are supporting a new way of working at a Porthmadog hospital.

Gwynedd councillors recently visited Ysbyty Alltwen to see for themselves the work being carried out by staff from the council’s social care team and Betsi Cadwaladr University Health Board to modernise care and health services in the county.

With the new Social Services and Wellbeing Act (Wales) 2014 introduced in April, the council says the project based at the community hospital is playing an important part in the work to modernise local­ care and health services.

Cllr Gareth Roberts, Gwynedd Council’s Cabinet member for adults and health, said: “I was delighted to welcome my fellow Cabinet members to Alltwen to highlight the excellent work being carried out by council and health board staff.

“Their enthusiasm and dedication to delivering this new and modern way of working is obvious for all to see.

“Our aim in developing these integrated social care and health services is to make sure that the Gwynedd resident is central to the services they receive, so that the services provided meet the specific needs and expectations of the resident and focus on what’s imp­ortant to them.

“Instead of sticking to the same old ways of working, our staff have been able to change the way they work so that the client is central to everything.

“This means that the resident rece­ives an improved service that’s designed to meet their needs and the service itself can respond more quickly to their needs, which is so important in these times of ever-tightening budgets.

“The response from service users has been extremely positive and shows the need for us to speed up the work of expanding this new way of working across Gwynedd.”

See the full story in this week’s Arfon/Dwyfor edition of the Cambrian News