A £40 million plan has been unveiled which will centralise hospital services in Colchester.

If it gets the go-ahead, it will mean the closure of the town's Essex County Hospital and relocation of 450 staff.

Staff and services from the Lexden Road hospital will move to the main Colchester General Hospital site and it is planned that 45 employees based at the old Severalls Hospital, and from other rented properties across town, will also move.

Yesterday's (Wednesday's) announcement is a dramatic move from an report a year ago that Essex County Hospital would not be facing the axe hanging over its head.

Now hospital bosses say they want to sell the building and its 4.2-acre site, opened in 1820.

Mike Pollard, chief executive of Essex Rivers Healthcare Trust, which runs the hospitals said: "Essex County Hospital has given 180 years of sterling service but it has become a moribund, congested and landlocked site, increasingly inaccessible to those self-evidently weak and vulnerable patients, particularly cancer patients, whose lives literally depend upon it.

"It is inefficient and means many patients have to travel between the two hospitals in Colchester for diagnosis and care."

The Trust is already planning to move cancer services from Essex County Hospital to the general site and build a £15 million purpose-built site.

Now it is hoped all the other services at Lexden Road will move - ophthalmology, dermatology, oral surgery, othotics, genito-urinary medicine, two operating theatres, and outpatients clinics in various specialities such as breast screening.

Staff affected at Severall, based at Chestnut Villa, work in cervical screening, pathology and biochemistry.

Mr Pollard said the opportunity to plan the development follows the publication of the Government's NHS Plan this year. It pledges to agree to a number of large-scale hospital developments each year, and the Trust hopes its proposal stands a good chance of fitting into this commitment.

A year ago, the Trust said it would keep Essex County as a community hospital, but changes in the local Health scene will mean Essex Rivers Healthcare Trust will not need it for this purpose.

Now the Trust has to put together its strategic outline case for the plan by Christmas, if agreed by regional bosses, it could be a reality by the end of 2004.

The £40 million plan will also include an education and training centre for nurses and day nursery for staffs' children.

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