BUILDING blocks will be put in place to build a brand new ward at Ipswich Hospital today .Twenty-seven lorries will be travelling down from Hull over a four day period to deliver the blocks of the ward that will be fitted together so that it can then be in use by September.

BUILDING blocks will be put in place to build a brand new ward at Ipswich Hospital today .

Twenty-seven lorries will be travelling down from Hull over a four day period to deliver the blocks of the ward that will be fitted together so that it can then be in use by September.

The blocks will be being dropped in the car park near to the maternity unit so anyone who would normally park there will not be able to do so from Friday to Monday .

Staff are being asked to park at Copleston High School and diversions will be set in place for visitors to park elsewhere on the Heath Road site.

Costing £1.7million the new unit is part of Ipswich Hospital's expansion and will back up the £25million new diagnostic treatment and critical care centre due to get underway in 2006.

It will give the hospital a much needed 27 extra beds which will help ease the pressure at the hospital.

With more beds it should mean less operations have to be cancelled, particularly when the hospital is at full capacity such as in the winter months.

Also by October it is hoped that the hospital will have a new day case unit which will consist of one theatre, three recovery beds, 10 trolley beds and a pre-admission centre.

For the hospital to continue to meet Government targets Paul Forden, chief executive of the hospital said that expansion measures were needed sooner than 2006 and the new wards and day unit were a way of doing that.

He said: "We cannot wait that long and I am not prepared to do that.

"It may not be perfect but it is a lot better than doing nothing."

Although the new ward is described as a temporary one, it is actually designed last for the next 30 years.