Patients will be dealt with and treated more quickly thanks to the introduction of a new "gateway to the wards" facility at a general hospital.

A new ward is being set up at Airedale General Hospital, Steeton, to speed up the treatment of accident and emergency patients.

Work has started on modernising the hospital's A&E department at a cost of almost £900,000.

The 'gateway' ward with 27 beds and five trolley beds will help improve the process of receiving and treating patients before going on the general wards.

Hospital bosses anticipate the scheme will be completed by early December, taking between 14 and 16 weeks.

John Sollberger, Airedale NHS Trust business manager (planning), said the upgrading of the A&E unit would increase the number of resuscitation rooms from one to three.

And the new assessment ward - ward 15 - would enable medics to speed up the process of patients coming through the A&E department.

"When acute or emergency patients come into hospital and need to be admitted, they will be sent to this ward and, because it deals with all admissions, it can be done faster," said Mr Sollberger.

"Patients will see a doctor more quickly as they are all based on the admissions ward and are not being admitted all over the hospital.

"The ward will provide the focal point for the initial treatment and assessment of all patients who are admitted and where all the facilities are in one place."

In the past A&E patients, who needed to stay in hospital, would have to be found a bed on a ward without first going into a specific assessment area.

The beds from ward 15 - previously a five-day ward - are to be moved to ward 22, which had been closed for some time.

Steve Tomlinson, unit manager, said ward 15 would deal with A&E patients and patients being admitted by GPs.

"It means they can then be admitted straight to the appropriate ward. In the past, people dealing with acute admission may have had patients on different wards in the hospital," Mr Tomlinson said.

Hospital bosses have stressed that the A&E department will remain open and operate as normally as possible during the period of the work.

The project also involves setting up extra closed circuit television cameras to cover a wider area in the A&E department and work to improve toilet facilities for disabled people.