SIR,
The Patients' Panel at Aneurin Bevan Health Board is undertaking a project this year to support and promote the splendid work done by the continence service at the health board.
Panel members are particularly concerned that public toilets are being closed to save money and there are now 200 fewer traditional public toilets compared to the late 1990s.
This means that these facilities are no longer available to children, adults and elderly people in our towns and villages.
Age Cymru says the Welsh Assembly Government has to protect Wales' network of public toilets and is calling for the imposition of a statutory duty on local authorities to provide clean, safe, secure and accessible toilets.
The Patients' Panel members heartily agree with this. Meanwhile, public toilets are being closed and local authorities do not have to provide them, therefore seeing the closure as a way of saving money.
These closures not only affect people with continence problems but everybody who needs these facilities when they're out and about, and the Patients' Panel would urge you to support our campaign and protest against planned closure of toilets.
If you would like to join the Patients' Panel in order to help to improve health services in Gwent, contact Rhian Lewis on 01633 623812, or email [email protected]">[email protected]
Nina Weaver
(Chairman, Patients' Panel)
and Karen Logan, OBE
(Consultant nurse, continence care and head of continence services – Aneurin Bevan Health Board)