WORK to replace Malvern's ageing community hospital has taken several key steps forward.

South Worcestershire Primary Care Trust's acting chief executive Paul Bates has set out a schedule to identify a development partner for a new healthcare facility for the town, based on a new EU process that has just become available for use.

Advertising for development partners on a project of this size is routinely carried out in European Community journals - but the PCT will not be asking for traditional expressions of interest.

Instead, developers will be asked to create the most imaginative and affordable proposals for Malvern's new hospital, but in an open way through which the best ideas can be pooled. The advertisement is expected to be placed in the European Community in November of this year.

Mr Bates added: "We are also looking at ways in which this dialogue with bidders can be accelerated, along with the actual construction process, but it is crucial that we undertake the whole procedure from tendering to ribbon-cutting in a way that is completely transparent, fair, and entirely in line with legal guidance from our solicitors."

The PCT has also placed a marker for a share of the Government's recently-announced annual allocation of £150m to support the capital costs of renewing the nation's community hospitals.

While developers for the Malvern project are being asked to supply the capital funding themselves, a successful final bid by the PCT may help reduce the charges that it will have pay over the next quarter-century for the total capital sum it needs to complete the hospital.

Mr Bates added: "While there can be no guarantees, the new Worcestershire PCT which launches on October 1 should see the Malvern hospital project very much as work-in-progress and our job is to maintain the momentum we have built up in recent months."

Pat Merrick, chairman of Malvern Hospital League of Friends, said she was keeping her fingers and toes crossed that the momentum would keep going.

"As long as things keep moving forward I'm happy," she said. "But really, I'm waiting for the day when the first sod is cut."