Health park plans at final stage

Artist impression of the children's health park

Plans for children's health park

Plans to create the UK's first children's health park - at a cost of £288m - have moved a step closer.

Monitor, an independent health board, has passed the proposals to redevelop Alder Hey Hospital in Liverpool.

The NHS Strategic Health Authority has also given it the green light. It will now be considered by the Department of Health, which is the final stage.

If passed by the Secretary of State, the new look hospital could be up and running by 2014.

Louise Shepherd, Alder Hey's chief executive, said: "To win this support from the Strategic Health Authority and Monitor is a significant milestone because it paves the way for the next stage of the process.

ALDER HEY HOSPITAL

The hospital serves an area stretching from Cumbria to Shropshire, as well as North Wales and the Isle of Man

It handles 244,000 patient visits a year

It opened in 1914, housed in buildings created as a home for paupers

In the 1940s it became the first UK hospital to have a neo-natal unit

It pioneered the use of penicillin in the treatment of children as well as pioneering heart treatment

"Currently we see around 200,000 children and young people each year but at present growth rates expect to see demand for our services increase significantly over the coming years."

Richard Glenn, the hospital's project director, said: "Alder Hey was built almost a century ago as a state-of-the-art children's hospital, based on the principles of Florence Nightingale.

"Since then it has been a pioneering hospital with a world-renowned reputation."

Though "state of the art" in Edwardian England, the buildings are overcrowded and unable to meet national guidelines for space and single-sex accommodation, a hospital spokesman said.

The first stage of work will include new inpatient and acute services accommodation, new facilities for radiology, pathology, operating theatres, PICU (Paediatric Intensive Care Unit), day surgery and day procedures.

There will be a new 1,000-space multi-storey car park and a park to provide exercise, space for families, staff and the local community.

Future plans include developing education and research facilities with the University of Liverpool, Liverpool John Moores University and Edge Hill University.