A £10 million ward block at Bradford Royal Infirmary is due to accept its first patients next week as the hospital continues to battle against exceptional winter pressures.

Staff had the chance to look around the three-storey block, which houses two new 28-bed elderly medical wards, on Christmas Eve before they open their doors to patients on Tuesday and Wednesday next week.

Of the extra 56 beds, 24 are in single rooms with en-suite facilities and the rest are in four-bed bays, each with its own bathroom.

The wards will not only help improve the patient experience, but also support infection prevention and control with the creation of more isolation facilities. It will help managers battle against extra winter pressures and meet tough new waiting time targets.

The existing wards vacated by elderly care will be used as ‘decanting space’ to allow the refurbishment of other wards.

Over the last few weeks the hospital has been running at full stretch with outbreaks of flu and the winter vomiting bug norovirus, causing problems. On Christmas Eve, two wards had full restrictions imposed on them because of diarrhoea and vomiting. The new block is the fastest build of its scale by the NHS and was constructed by the HACS Group. Workers had to shift tons of earth from the site – the grassed area just behind the main entrance at BRI.

The work is part of a multi-million pound modernisation to transform the city’s hospitals. Other building work taking place on the BRI site includes a new lecture theatre and the Listening for Life Centre.

Work is also taking place to create a new orthopaedic outpatients department at a cost of £1m.