£121m boost for Llantrisant Health Park surgery hubv
Welsh Government invests £121m in new orthopaedic hub at Llantrisant Health Park, targeting 3,000 operations and 36‑week wait limit by 2030.
A further £121 million will be invested in a major health facility in south Wales, adding six new operating theatres and 54 beds as part of a drive to cut NHS waiting times. The funding, provided by the Welsh Government, is earmarked for the new Regional Orthopaedic Arthroplasty Hub at Llantrisant Health Park, a site being redeveloped on the former British Airways Avionic Engineering premises near The Royal Glamorgan Hospital.
The hub will initially concentrate on hip and knee replacement surgery and is projected to deliver around 3,000 operations a year. It aims to raise the regional capacity for these procedures and to ensure that no patient waits longer than 36 weeks for treatment by 2030, with the ambition that many patients will be able to return home on the same day as their operation.
Cabinet Minister for Health and Care, Mabon ap Gwynfor, said: “This funding is a significant boost to the construction of a new purpose‑built facility at Llantrisant Health Park – designed to cut waiting times and get people the treatment they need faster. “Once open, the new Hub will carry out thousands of operations and embed lasting sustainability into the system.
This is what real investment in the NHS looks like – not a quick fix, but the capacity we need to clear the backlog and keep waiting times down for the future.”
The hub forms the next phase of a broader development of the former British Airways avionics engineering building at Gwaun Elai. Work on the first phase, a Community Diagnostic Hub, is set to begin in March 2026.
Construction on the orthopaedic and day‑surgery stage is expected to start later this month, with completion slated for late 2028 and the Regional Orthopaedic Arthroplasty Hub opening to patients in early 2029.
Three University Health Boards – Cwm Taf Morgannwg, Aneurin Bevan and Cardiff and Vale – are collaborating on the project. The development has previously attracted scrutiny over the role of the private sector, after concerns that diagnostic services in the first phase might be run by an independent provider.
Cwm Taf Morgannwg University Health Board later confirmed that the second phase, covering orthopaedic and day‑surgery facilities, was not proposed to be delivered through a managed service contract with a third‑party company.