HEALTH chiefs have drawn up plans for up to 56 more intermediate care beds at Worcester Royal Infirmary.

They are understood to have been due to present a proposal for the new beds to Health Minister Yvette Cooper at a meeting last week, but it was cancelled by the Minister.

A new meeting was expected to take place tomorrow.

The plans are believed to be for two extra wards to be opened at the Newtown site if they are needed to stop "bed-blocking" in acute wards.

These intermediate care beds would be in addition to 56 beds earmarked to cope with winter pressures.

Health bosses are also looking at increasing the number of critical care beds.

Harold Musgrove, chairman of Worcestershire Acute Hospitals NHS Trust, would not comment specifically on the extra beds and said negotiations were continuing.

But he hinted that prospects were looking brighter on the nursing front.

"The situation regarding availability of staff is becoming more hopeful," he said. "We're gaining more nurses than we're losing. Therefore, we'll have additional staff, which means additional beds.

"Also we're getting considerable support in tackling bed-blockers."

This week, around 18 or 19 Filipino nurses were due to arrive

Cont on P4

From P1 / 6 in the country to work in Worcesterhsire.

In addition, Ministers were shortly expected to announce an extra cash boost for Worcestershire health and social services to ease winter pressures.

Worcester's Labour MP, Mike Foster, welcomed the news of additional beds at the WRI.

But he accepted that more nurses were also needed.

"Fears that the new hospital is too small will be eased by the extra capacity that will now be available at Newtown," he said.

"But extra beds are only part of the equation. Nurses are needed to staff them. Worcester is now beginning to attract nurses from other parts of the country."

He is also pressing for Worcester's new £91m district general hospital to open several months earlier than its planned date of March 2002.

In March 1999, Worcester's marathon 40-year wait for a new hospital ended with the announcement of a new £91m county hospital.

But the issue of bed numbers had dominated the shake-up of health services in the county since Worcestershire Health Authority's Strategic Review.

The WHA's Investing in Excellence document which revamped hospital services saw 192 acute beds removed at Kidderminster General and relocated at WRI and Redditch (bed-for- bed) according to health chiefs at Worcester Royal Infirmary.

Rumblings over bed numbers persisted with health chiefs still insisting in March 1999 that initial plans for 390 beds at the new hospitals were sufficient - with a capacity to increase if required.

But two months later, in May 1999, following a review of Investing in Excellence, health chiefs announced a further 84 beds after they decided to open at full capacity of 474 beds.

The figures for the new PFI hospital break down as follows: 454 in-patient acute beds on the main site. In addition there will 22 in South Block's rheumatology department, 47 day case beds, 11 A&E assessment beds and four in a children's assessment unit.

An additional 56 beds on the Newtown Hospital site have also been set aside to cope with winter pressures, bringing a total of 594.

In an Acute Hospital Services Update in October 2000 projected bed numbers across the county with the new hospital were 1,013 (which included the 56 winter pressure beds) thus a total of 957. This compared to a figure of 1,062 in 1999-2000 and 1,061 during service moves from 2000-2001.

Worcestershire Acute Hospitals NHS Trust said these figures showed the "likely scale of acute hospital bed provision over the next two years".