A MINOR injury unit, 40 inpatient beds and a 24-bed nursing home will be included in the facilities at a proposed £12 million town hospital if its business case gets the go ahead.

A MINOR injury unit, 40 inpatient beds and a 24-bed nursing home will be included in the facilities at a proposed £12 million town hospital if its business case gets the go ahead.

West Suffolk Hospitals NHS Trust is confident the outline business case for a new community hospital in Sudbury, due to open in 2005, will be approved when it goes before the Suffolk, Norfolk and Cambridgeshire Strategic Health Authority on July 31.

The case was rejected by the Suffolk, Norfolk and Cambridgeshire Strategic Health Authority several times last year because it was unhappy with the financial situation of the Suffolk West Primary Care Trust (PCT).

But after a recent consultation exercise by the Health and Social Care Advisory Service (HSCAS) the West Suffolk Hospitals Trust has developed an updated business case and extra £1.2m funding has been directed towards the Sudbury scheme.

Health bosses are confident the case will finally be approved next month and have revealed some of the facilities the public can expect when the hospital finally opens.

Plans include developing a 'health village' on a site on the edge of the Chilton Industrial Estate, which will include a minor injuries unit, a day care facility, GP premises, a 24-bed nursing home and a 40-bed care unit.

The trust's director of strategy Jessica Watts said: "This is a significant move forward and is a much more flexible way of providing health and social care for the people of Sudbury, a one-stop-shop health campus providing a range of services for the whole community. The public consultation has told us that people want us to place a greater emphasis on out-patient and minor injury facilities and provide treatment for people at home wherever possible."

The scheme has been boosted after the PCT identified within the Local Health Delivery Plan an additional £1m to develop services in Sudbury during the 2005/6 financial year. A further £200,000 will be available the following year.

PCT chief executive Tony Ranzetta said: "The new health village for Sudbury is an important priority for the PCT, so we have sourced an extra £1.2m funding for its development. This indicates our commitment to the project and our determination to see that the people of Sudbury receive the first-class healthcare to which they are entitled."

In the meantime the West Suffolk Hospitals NHS Trust will close Sudbury's St Leonard's Hospital by the end of September and relocate services to the Walnuttree Hospital site.