'New hospital will set the standards'

Welcoming progress on the new £14 million hospital, trust chief executive Neil McKay said last week it was a cause for celebration for people in the town and its surrounding communities.

At Thursday's board meeting of the Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust,Mr McKay said: "What a wonderful facility this will be for this locality."

He said over the years there had been a lot of hard work put into the building of the new hospital - which should start being built sometime this month and be opened by January 2004.

"This is a real cause for celebration," he said.

Project manager Kevin Westwood explained that the three storey building, arranged in a quadrangle, would be built into a slope - making it only slightly higher than the current postgraduate centre at the hospital.

"The whole site slopes which will allow the hospital to be built into a hill and have two ground floors.

"It is essentially a three storey building, but with two full floors and two half floors."

Concerns have been raised by councillors that the building was very high and could easily be seen from various points across the town, including Otley Chevin.

But Mr Westwood said the actual height would not be much more than the existing listed Postgraduate centre.

He pointed out everything currently offered at the old hospital would stay at the new hospital - but far improved.

There would also be scope to expand on new facilities, such as booked admissions, giving patients the ability to book appointments rather than wait for letters.

The hospital, which will feature three wards, two medical and one surgical, will cater for about 76 patients and employ around 200 full and part time staff - about the same as now.

It will also feature endoscopy, a minor injuries unit and a pharmacy.

And it will also have a therapy garden and another garden for day patients to enjoy.

Other progressive features were a single corridor cutting through the building like a spine and single rooms and four bedded bays, all with their own facilities in the wards.

Mr Westwood pointed out the bed bays would give flexibility, allowing staff to make them for men or women.

It will have around 200 car parking spaces and specially designed drop off points and traffic routes to make access around the site flow easily.

Mr Westwood said the trust would build on its already good relationship with the new Leeds North West Primary Care Trust to make it a beacon community hospital.

"This has been a long haul going on for a number of years, but we are almost at the point of reaching the summit.

"This is a real opportunity to create a new Wharfedale as a centre of excellence as a community hospital with good practice and good service delivery," he said.

Board members were told that clearance work ahead of building work on the new hospital had already started and should start in earnest later this month.

Medical director, Dr Hugo Mascie-Taylor, said: "We've been having detailed discussions about this for more than ten years and probably even 20 years. We should take some pleasure in that we will deliver it. This is an opportunity for this town and North Leeds, we should see it as a real triumph."

Dr Mascie-Taylor added it should also be seen as a starting point.

"We need to see how we will use the building to the greatest effect and that will mean working closely with the PCTs and GPs, we will need to build on that."

Tribute was also made to the tenacity of hospital workers to make sure the new hospital was built.

Dr Mascie-Taylor added that there was every chance that the hospital would change to fit in with changes in healthcare. "We are building this hospital in order to continue the work here that is already being done, but at the same time it would be foolish to believe health care will not change in the future."

And he pointed to the growth in day surgery and the role Primary Care Trusts would have in the future.

"Given the good relationship we have with the PCTs, this particular institution should be at the leading edge."