A multi-million pound vision to redevelop Ipswich Hospital and transform care for patients in Suffolk has taken a step closer to reality.

A business proposal for the project, which the EADT exclusively revealed in February, has now been submitted to the NHS Trust Development Authority for officials to look at and see “whether the numbers stack up”.

Ipswich MP and newly-appointed junior health minister Ben Gummer met with hospital chief executive Nick Hulme yesterday where they discussed the initiative, which would cost more than £100million to create.

Earlier plans seen by this newspaper showed the bulk of the project would see clinical care move to the south side of the site and would involve some of the older buildings being demolished.

Welcoming the plans yesterday, Mr Gummer said: “If and when we can get this done it will make a significant difference to the quality of care that the hospital is able to provide just because they will be more efficient.

“The relationship between outpatients, inpatients and operating theatres is properly worked out and that means the hospital can go from a position of offering good care quite efficiently to offering outstanding care very efficiently.

“It’s that step change that we are going to make and it’s not just about the hospital, it’s about all of the care facilities that go around it, so especially older people and specialist long term conditions and that is what is really exciting.”

In an earlier interview with this newspaper, Mr Hulme admitted that services can’t continue to be run from the older buildings in the long term and that there were options to get “every bit of the site up to standard”.

The business case will need approval from the Department of Health and the Treasury and will go before ministers.

Mr Gummer, who described the redevelopment of the hospital as one of his main priorities, added: “It is very ambitious and money is still tight but I am confident we have got a good case and it’s now down to me and Nick to make sure it happens.

“It’s going to be a scrap but I’ve done this before and I know how to do it and my job is to deliver the goods and I will do my very best. I am sure with a robust plan we will make progress.”

The latest development has come after the Heath Road trust secured a good rating it a Care Quality Commission (CQC) report.

Mr Hulme, who has been at the hospital for two years, said it is not known when work and completion of the redevelopment of the hospital will come to fruition.

But after committing to spending the next six years at Ipswich, he added: “I would hope at the end of that time we are sitting in a different building.”