HOSPITAL improvements costing well over £ million are scheduled at Leigh Infirmary.

Wigan and Leigh Health Sevices NHS is expected to approve recommendations to redevelop key areas at Leigh.

It would mean a total investment of £500,000 - plus equipment and a hydrotherapy pool - over the next three or four years.

The plans come after consultations between infirmary users, the Community Health Council and local councillors.

Recommendations include spending £50,000 on a new rehabilitation unit situated on vacant ward 9; £210,000 on building an new endoscopy unit and theatre corridor, plus a further £70,000 on outpatient facilities.

Acute Services Executive Director Tom Pickering told the Trust board:"There are 100,000 people in and around Leigh. It is not possible to provide emergency services, but it is possible and therefore proper to provide outpatient, diagnostic, day surgery and sub acute services.

"Wigan Infirmary is extremely crowded. If we are to have space to develop intensive care, cardiac catheterisation, vascular services and a cancer unit, we must transfer those services which can be provided to high standards away from the A & E site.

"The development of good facilities at Leigh will encourage the town's population to continue to choose us for their treatment.

"The Trust depends on income gained through patients using Leigh. The Trust would have great difficulty surviving without that income.

"Financial opportunities created by increasing income via Leigh and the savings in capital terms by re-using good quality buildings at Leigh are considerable."

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