FACILITIES from the decommissioned field hospitals across North Wales will now be spread across the region, officials have confirmed.

When the pandemic broke out in Wales, health boards made additional provision across the country to keep pressure off the main hospitals coping with the virus.

In North Wales, Betsi Cadwaladr University Health Board set up three sites in the region. One at Deeside Leisure Centre in Flintshire, a second at Venue Cymru in Llandudno and a third at Bangor University.

In total, the three rainbow hospitals provided an additional 1,000 hospital beds as well as facilities to help people recovering from the virus rehabilitate closer to home and take pressure off the main hospital units in the region.

It was confirmed this March that all three hospitals would be handed back to their original owners later this year.

BCUHB’s executive director of planning and performance Mark Wilkinson previously said that the Deeside facility would close as a hospital on March 26

Mass Vaccination Centres at Deeside Leisure Centre and Llandudno’s Venue Cymru would be returned by July 31.

He added that a “gradual decommission” of the Bangor University site would begin in April and will be completed by September.

Addressing queries about what will happen to the medical equipment across the region, the director of estates and facilities at BCUHB, Rod Taylor, said: “Equipment from our three Rainbow Hospitals will be reallocated to support health board services across North Wales and will benefit our patients for many years to come.”