A NEW £2.25 million purpose-built hospice is expected to be up-and-running in Kidderminster within two years.

The state-of-the-art building will replace the existing Kemp care centre and will contain a five-bed unit to cater for cancer patients requiring palliative and respite care, as well as their families, overnight.

This will be in addition to an increase in day care places by 50 per cent from 12 to 18, which had originally been exclusively revealed by the Shuttle/Times & News in March last year in initial plans to build a £1 million hospice.

The latest proposals were unveiled by Kemp Hospice Trustees' chairman Peter Field, who said the charity would apply for planning permission for the new design next month and aimed to complete the new hospice by March 2003.

He said: "We are absolutely determined everything concerned in this initiative will go through on time.

"We are under no illusions about the size of the task and will not underestimate it in any way.

"However, we have a clear plan about fund-raising for the work and hope for everyone's support at the necessary stages."

Mr Field, who spoke exclusively to the Shuttle/Times & News, revealed Kemp and the Kidderminster Primary Care Group had identified the need for more palliative care beds in the district.

He said: "We were hoping to have 25 GP beds at Kidderminster Hospital but Worcestershire Health Authority has only been able to fund 20.

"So with the need for more beds, in particular for cancer patients, we were given permission by the health authority to include them at the new hospice but, regrettably, have been given no help financially."

Thirty-five GP beds were originally earmarked for Kidderminster under the health authority's 1998 Investing in Excellence document, but district GPs said they could only cope with 25 and the figure has since been reduced to 20.

The hospital's GP Bed Unit, which opened on Monday, will see doctors look after patients with acute medical and nursing problems.

Once the new hospice is launched, Kemp will need to recruit an extra 12 to 16 full-time nurses and will also require a volunteer receptionist and laundry staff.

It owns three properties on its Sutton Park Road site but the administration block is separated from the hospice centre by a vacant house, which creates organisational problems for staff.

The centre currently offers hospice day care, incorporating home care, bereavement care, a cancer drop-in centre and pastoral and spiritual help.

The new plans will see the office building demolished and replaced with a much larger two-storey building to include 23 car parking spaces and an ambulance drop-off area. The bed unit will be part of the same complex but separated by a corridor area.

Mr Field said the charity needed to raise £1.5 million of the funding by applying for help from national hospice trusts and National Lottery funds before going public in the final fund-raising "surge", when Wyre Forest folk and businesses can help the push towards the final figure.

He added: "This really is a massive project for a hospice such as ourselves, but the patients and families we serve are special people and we will always do everything possible to help them."

Kemp Hospice was established in 1981 after representatives of local churches joined together to form KEMP - the Kidderminster Ecumenical Mission Project.

KEMP worked with the district health authority to purchase its current Kemp House site, which serves people throughout the district and Tenbury.

Plans are due to go before Wyre Forest District Council next month.