HC Deb 08 December 1986 vol 107 c66W
Mr. Dobson

asked the Secretary of State for Social Services when construction work was completed on those wards at Derriford hospital, Plymouth, whose opening was announced in a press release on 28 November.

Mrs. Currie

Construction work on the shell of the building was completed in 1979 and the first wards were fitted out and opened in 1981 when 205 beds were commissioned, later increased to 347. Fitting out of the remaining wards is now all but completed. Together with the wards opened in November this will allow a further 300 beds or so to be brought into use over the next 20 months, and the regional health authority plans to have brought into use some 650 beds in the new podium and tower block at Derriford by the middle of 1988.