Structure
There are seven Local Health Boards (LHBs) in Wales and three national NHS Trusts. Each LHB is responsible for delivering all NHS healthcare services within a geographical area. Three NHS Trusts, called 'all-Wales trusts', operate nationwide agencies and services. These are: the Welsh Ambulance Service, Velindre NHS Trust (providing a range of specialist services at local, regional and All Wales levels, including the Welsh Blood Service and specialist cancer services), and Public Health Wales.
The current Health Boards were created on 1 October 2009 following a reorganisation of NHS Wales that saw the abolition of 22 Local Health Boards (LHBs) and seven NHS Trusts that had existed since 2003. Since the reorganisation Health Boards are responsible for delivering all NHS services, rather than the two-tiered Trust and LHB system that existed previously.
Wales' largest teaching hospital, the University Hospital of Wales based in Cardiff is the largest hospital outside London and third largest in the United Kingdom.
Read more about this topic: NHS Wales
Famous quotes containing the word structure:
“Who says that fictions only and false hair
Become a verse? Is there in truth no beauty?
Is all good structure in a winding stair?
May no lines pass, except they do their duty
Not to a true, but painted chair?”
—George Herbert (1593–1633)
“When a house is tottering to its fall,
The strain lies heaviest on the weakest part,
One tiny crack throughout the structure spreads,
And its own weight soon brings it toppling down.”
—Ovid (Publius Ovidius Naso)
“It is difficult even to choose the adjective
For this blank cold, this sadness without cause.
The great structure has become a minor house.
No turban walks across the lessened floors.
The greenhouse never so badly needed paint.”
—Wallace Stevens (1879–1955)