Bradford Royal Infirmary has announced plans for a state-of-the-art conference and learning centre to complement the £2.9million lecture theatre currently under construction.

The building at Field House on the BRI site will be used to provide education for students and staff, host meetings and be used as a conference venue for other healthcare events.

It will provide seminar space, teaching classrooms and a restaurant. It is the second phase of ongoing improvements to the teaching area of the hospital to enable an expansion in the number of trainee doctors.

The ongoing work on the lecture theatre began in September when Sovereign Healthcare chief executive David Lewis turned the first sod. It which will hold 200 people and is expected to be completed next year.

Bradford Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust has asked Aedas Leeds to design the new conference and learning centre.

The design involves the infill of a central courtyard at Field House, while the outer area of the building will have disabled access and feature a foyer, bar, cloakroom and seating area serving food.

Aedas Leeds regional director David Holmes said: "We're very pleased that work will be able to start. The lecture theatre will really help support education and teaching programmes and will be a major boost to the foundation trust and the local health community, and the striking design and state-of-the-art facilities will support the responsibilities as a major teaching hospital in the 21st century."

In October a new education centre, also in Field House, was opened by Professor William Burr, the post-graduate dean at Yorkshire Deanary, and Dr Gwendolen Bradshaw, the dean of the school of health studies at the University of Bradford.

A spokesman for Bradford Teaching Hospitals said: "As we are currently at the design stage for the second phase of this development programme, no timescales have been set."

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