PLANS for an 11th hour expansion of Swindon's new Great Western Hospital have been mapped out by chief executive Sonia Mills.

Details of the scheme were unveiled at a hastily convened press conference after the Evening Advertiser broke the news that more beds were needed at the new GWH hospital just two months before its completion.

Ms Mills explained that administration staff, originally due to work in the new GWH building, would be moved off site to clear the way for a new 36-bed ward which should be up and running by next year.

And there are also plans to house 70-beds and four theatres in an elective treatment centre on adjoining land to the east of the GWH Commonhead site by 2004.

The trust is confident that the GWH's 523 beds combined with the proposed 106 will be enough to cope with the predicted population boom in Swindon.

Ms Mills said: "We always knew that in time the hospital would need to expand.

"We have taken the decision to carry out that first stage in order to meet a new set of targets outlined in the NHS plan which was published in July 2000.

"We are being asked to reduce the waiting times for admissions down to four hours. You can't do that with 100 per cent bed occupancy. The hospital is already very efficient, so there is little more we can gain in that area. The bottom line is that we need more beds.

"We have also been set a target of reducing waiting times for elective surgery to six months by 2005.

"These targets combined with higher levels of emergency cases have led us to take this course of action."

Ms Mills said that bed blocking by patients who were waiting for a suitable nursing home, sheltered housing or psychiatric ward place had also had a dramatic effect on the numbers of available beds.

"Social services in Wiltshire and Swindon have also been set targets to reduce the numbers of people waiting for placements. We have about 60 beds spaces blocked each month and we will find it difficult to meet our targets unless this number is reduced."

She explained that the targets were applied to all hospital trusts and that extra funding would be made available to meet the building costs of the ward and fund the £750,000 running costs of the ward.