Madam,

Many of us are used to the fact that when we ring the surgery our apppointment may now be with a nurse practitioner , associate physician, or another health professional, well able to deal with minor ailments that do not necessarily need a doctor.

The future of health care in Ceredigion may well be a little more radical however.

At the information and engagement session held by the Mid Wales Joint Committee for Health and Social Care at Aberystwyth’s Tesco’s on 18 May, I hoped to gain information as to the current state of services in a post-Bodlondeb Aberystwyth. Instead much of the talk was of isolated homes being served by drones ferrying everything from blood samples to seriously ill patients to and from Bronglais Hospital.

Antipatory Care Planning (what used to be called early intervention) will be aided by gadgets such as bathroom mirrors which will take temperature, blood pressure and weigh you.

A holographic ‘doctor’ could diagnose your illness by virtue of having ‘20 questions’ style programming.

Locations such as the joint Health / Social Services equipment store in Felinfach could be amalgamated into one site with automated picking just like the giant online retailers.

One benefit of this could possibly be the end of the recruitment difficulties; all robots, no staff, no need to recruit.

Community services will be delivered via ‘hubs’, one-stop facilities for accessing health and social care services.

It is acknowledged though that not every service can be installed in every hub, so some element of the ‘postcode lottery’ for services will remain. The proposed hub in Aberystwyth is yet to be found a location, whereas the Aberaeron hub is due to open September 2019, Cardigan hub at Christmas 2019 and Tregaron, well 2006?

This is health’s vision of the delivery of comunity services in Ceredigion; a situation where technology is very much to the fore. No definite dates for implementation were discussed and this whole technology-based strategy may take some accepting by the general public.

I also wanted to speak with the representative from Social Services, but he went home early.

Having learned much about the future of health services in Ceredigion I had hoped to see how Social Services were coping with current demand for services and their plans for the future.

Yours etc, George Holloway, Rhoshendre, Waunfawr, Aberystwyth.

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