GWENT health chiefs are "increasingly concerned" over the time it is taking to secure a decision on final plans for the area's proposed Specialist and Critical Care Centre (SCCC).

The full business case for the £295 million project - the final stage of a lengthy development process - was submitted to the Welsh Government by Aneurin Bevan University Health Board last October.

Almost eight months on however, a decision remains pending, and hopes for a late summer 2019 opening have disappeared.

Now health board chairman David Jenkins, backed by board members, will write to new health minister Vaughan Gething to try to impress upon him the need for a swift answer.

Mr Jenkins told a board meeting yesterday that he is drafting a letter to Mr Gething, "in relation to the SCCC and the need for a speedy outcome to the current process."

"All our planning is on the assumption that we are moving towards a final implementation of the Clinical Futures programme around 2020, and we need to have a decision (on the SCCC) pretty soon," said Mr Jenkins.

"If not, it opens up for the health board the need to make appropriate plans to deliver the best services we can for the population we serve.

"That would include major investment at the Royal Gwent and Nevill Hall Hospitals - and there are also major workforce requirements - in order to sustain services.

"This health board is getting increasingly concerned at the delay in getting a response from the Welsh Government. We need an answer."

Mr Gething is the sixth health minister to have occupied that post since the SCCC was first spoken of in 2003 as the centrepiece of an ambitious modernisation programme for health services in Gwent.

That programme, called Clinical Futures, was published in 2004, and the concept of a Specialist and Critical Care Centre remains the most viable option for a new hospital to treat Gwent's sickest patients, having survived delays caused by economic downturn and recession, and reviews of the project itself, and of hospital services proposals across South East Wales.

A decision on the SCCC is undoubtedly taking longer due to this being an election year, which triggered the dissolution of the last Welsh Government early in April, ahead of several weeks of election campaigning, the election itself, and the subsequent machinations required to form a new government.

Even if a decision were announced now, the SCCC would be unlikely to open until spring 2020 at the earliest.

But a further delay could impact too on the health board's ability to sustain already fragile services across two hospital sites, the Royal Gwent and Nevill Hall.

These services, highlighted in the full business case document for the SCCC, include obstetrics, neonatal, emergency general surgery, and trauma, due to issues affecting staffing, training, and the needs of patients.