Hywel Dda GP surgery websites — Cymraeg-strong West Wales.

The footprint, honestly described

Hywel Dda is geographically vast and demographically older than the Welsh average. Patients in rural Ceredigion or northern Carmarthenshire may travel 30-60 minutes to their GP and 60-90 minutes to a hospital outpatient appointment. The Landsker line — the historic linguistic boundary cutting through Pembrokeshire — is still visible in patient list demographics today: practices in Crymych and Fishguard sit in heavily Welsh-speaking communities, practices in Pembroke and Tenby sit in long-established English-speaking ones. The website needs to know which side of that line your practice sits.

Our default Hywel Dda build is bilingual at /en/ and /cy/ with one-click toggle on every page. The default landing language is configurable per practice based on your actual list profile. For a Ceredigion practice we typically default to Welsh; for a south-Pembrokeshire practice typically English; for Carmarthen and Llanelli we ask which way the local patient list leans.

Three general hospitals, four districts

The three general hospitals — Glangwili (Carmarthen), Withybush (Haverfordwest) and Bronglais (Aberystwyth) — plus Prince Philip in Llanelli, are the bedrock of secondary care here, with onward referral to Singleton in Swansea, Morriston for tertiary trauma, and Cardiff for specialist services. We surface the right hospital for the right service rather than dumping a list. If your practice's typical referral route for ENT is Glangwili and for orthopaedics is Prince Philip, that's what we put on the page.

The reconfiguration that has been coming for years

Hywel Dda has been working through a long-term programme to reconfigure services across its three general hospital sites, including a new urgent and planned care hospital planned for between St Clears and Narberth. Timelines have shifted several times. We keep your site's secondary-care signposting current to your actual referral routes today, and we update the relevant pages — proactively, without you needing to flag it — when reconfiguration milestones move patient pathways.

NHS Wales App, properly

My Health Online was decommissioned for most Welsh GP practices by 31 March 2024. The NHS Wales App, run by Digital Health and Care Wales, is the replacement. Hywel Dda practices vary in their App integration status. Our admin tool lets you signpost the App accurately for your practice's current state, with clear honesty about what works today versus what is coming. The Vision-to-EMIS migration during 2025-26 affects what patients can do via the App during the switchover — our admin tool stages pre- and post-migration messaging on the dates you confirm.

Hywel Dda leadership context

Hywel Dda UHB is led by Steve Moore, who took up the role of Chief Executive in October 2024. Hywel Dda has typically been one of the more contractually-engaged Welsh Health Boards on primary care, with active Cluster Leads and a longstanding GP-engagement culture. Our default Hywel Dda build is set up to fit cleanly into that contract-management context — your site has what your contract reviewer expects to see, and what HIW expects to see, with no last-minute scramble.

Older patient demographic, modern site

Hywel Dda has the highest median age of any Welsh Health Board population. A modern GP website that works for that demographic looks different from one designed for a Cardiff student practice: larger text, fewer JavaScript-only interactions, prominent phone numbers above every digital service, a clear "still call us" option on every quick-action form, and a strong urgent-banner pattern for things like out-of-hours surgery cover. We design Hywel Dda sites to that brief by default.

Frequently asked questions

How important is Cymraeg in the Hywel Dda footprint?

Very. Ceredigion reported 45.3% Welsh-speakers in the 2021 Census, Carmarthenshire 39.9%, and Pembrokeshire around 16.8% — the last with strong variation between north Pembrokeshire (heavily Welsh-speaking) and south Pembrokeshire (largely English-speaking, the historic Landsker line). For most Hywel Dda practices, particularly in Ceredigion and rural Carmarthenshire, Welsh is the everyday working language of a substantial share of patients. A bilingual website is baseline, not optional.

Hywel Dda is rural with long travel distances. Does the website reflect that?

Yes. Hywel Dda covers three of the largest local authorities by land area in Wales — Carmarthenshire, Pembrokeshire and Ceredigion — with three general hospitals (Glangwili in Carmarthen, Withybush in Haverfordwest, Bronglais in Aberystwyth) and Prince Philip Hospital in Llanelli. Patients may travel 60-90 minutes for some services. Our default build is honest about that in the secondary-care signposting, in the urgent-message routing (111 Wales for evenings and weekends), and in how we describe travel for cancer services to Singleton in Swansea or Cardiff.

What about the planned Hywel Dda hospital reconfiguration?

Hywel Dda has been working through a longer-term programme to reconfigure services across its three general hospital sites, with a new urgent and planned care hospital planned for between St Clears and Narberth. The programme has shifted timelines several times. Our default build keeps secondary-care signposting current to your actual referral routes today, and we update the relevant pages — without you needing to ask — when reconfiguration milestones change patient pathways.

Many of our patients are older or have lower digital literacy. Does that fit a modern GP website?

Yes — provided the site is designed for them, not for a tech-aware city audience. Hywel Dda has the highest median age of any Welsh Health Board population. Our default Hywel Dda build keeps text larger, uses fewer JavaScript-only interactions, includes prominent phone numbers above every digital service, and offers a clear "still call us" option on every quick-action form. The site passes WCAG 2.2 AA, but the practical accessibility is more important than the badge.

Welsh-medium clinical content — how do you handle terminology?

Welsh clinical terminology is a real specialism. The Wales Term Council (Y Coleg Cymraeg Cenedlaethol) maintains standardised Welsh medical terms; the Welsh Language Commissioner publishes specific healthcare-translation guidance. Our Welsh translations are produced by professional translators and reviewed by a Welsh-speaking practising NHS GP before publication — not a model, not a non-clinician editor. For Hywel Dda, where Welsh is the first language of a significant share of patients, that bar is non-negotiable.