Plans for new military staff ward

The hospital treats casualties from Afghanistan and Iraq

A ward solely for the use of injured servicemen and women will be included in a new hospital in Birmingham.

The ward, which could accommodate up to 30 injured military staff, will be a feature of the Birmingham New Hospital, in Edgbaston, due to open in 2010.

Military staff are currently treated at the city's Selly Oak Hospital, the site of the Royal Centre for Defence Medicine (RCDM).

The site has been criticised by some soldiers' families in the past.

In 2007, the family of the then 19-year-old Pte Jamie Cooper, at the time the youngest soldier to be injured in Iraq, complained after he twice contracted MRSA while at Selly Oak.

We will build on the success of the current ward at Selly Oak as we move to the new hospital at Edgbaston Derek Twigg MP

He was injured in Basra in November 2006 after shrapnel cut through his stomach during fighting.

However, the claims were rejected by the army's most senior general Sir Richard Dannatt said who said conditions at Selly Oak had improved and the hospital was getting better.

Derek Twigg, the Under Secretary of State for Defence, said the new hospital would offer "outstanding facilities" for military patients.

"The military ward in Birmingham's new hospital further demonstrates our commitment to providing the best possible care for military casualties.

"We will build on the success of the current ward at Selly Oak as we move to the new hospital at Edgbaston," he said.

The RCDM, along with the University Hospital Birmingham NHS Foundation Trust, will offer single rooms or four-bed rooms on the new ward with more nursing staff than normally found on an NHS ward.

It will offer a quiet room for relatives, a communal space for patients to gather together and a dedicated physiotherapy area.

Patients are principally casualties returning from Afghanistan and Iraq.

The new hospital is to be home to the largest single-floor critical care unit in the world, with 100 beds.