Otley'S new £15 million hospital will not be private, a health chief has stressed.

Wharfedale Hospital, on schedule to open in September next year, could, in addition, expand to take on more than the planned services, including more surgery.

It could also find itself a model for developers of other community hospitals across the country.

Kevin Westwood, senior development officer with the Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust, sought to convince members of the town's voluntary and statutory groups that the financing of the new hospital did not mean it would be a private facility.

"A lot of people misunderstand PFI (Private Finance Initiative) to mean private medicine and that is not the case. What we are doing is taking out a mortgage and after 28 years we will pay it off. At the end of that time, the building will be ours."

At Friday's monthly meeting of the Otley Community Luncheon Club at Otley Civic Centre he said he hoped that people would realise the commitment the trust had to the town by the very fact that the hospital was being built and on schedule to be finished by August next year.

If everything went to plan, he believed that cladding and roofing of the new hospital in Newall Carr Road would be complete by July and the building completely finished by June next year.

There would be a short period of change over from the old hospital to the new, but he hoped all services would operate from the new hospital by September next year.

Mr Westwood paid tribute to hospital staff, patients and residents for being patient with any parking problems but believed it was a necessary evil if the town wanted a new hospital.

The new hospital will feature two 26 bed medical wards, a 24 bed surgical ward and a 20 place day surgery suite. There will be an endoscopy suite, twin theatres, an outpatients department with 26 consulting rooms, examination rooms and an assessment suite.

The diabetes day centre will remain, there will be cardiac testing, a minor injuries unit and radiography department. In addition, there will be ultrasound and fluoroscopy testing, mammography, pathology and physiotherapy.

Mr Westwood said every effort had been made to make the new hospital people friendly with departments positioned to make them most convenient for patients and staff.

Unlike the old hospital, theatres and surgical wards will be on the same floor and medical wards will be on the top so people convalescing will get the most of expansive views of the Chevin.

There will be two entrances and the reception in the middle of the site.

"It is going to be a very simple building to negotiate with no long corridors to confuse people. we've tried to make it so people are not walking around and around the hospital, " said Mr Westwood.

New to the hospital will be the ability for patients to book admissions, which it is hoped will cut down on waiting times.

"As a community hospital, we are creating a real centre of excellence. People up and down the country will come here and say yes we want to recreate the Wharfedale model," said Mr Westwood.

He also told the meeting how there was scope to expand facilities at the hospital - both in outpatients and the range of surgery carried out.

But in answer to Rachel Thompson, of the Otley Disability Advisory Group, he ruled out any return of intensive care beds at Wharfedale.

He said the best place for intensive care patients was in Leeds where those services could be centralised.

He added the old listed parts of hospital, formerly the town's workhouse, will return to the government.

l The next meeting of the luncheon club, run by Friends of Otley Community, is due to take place on June 6.