Building work has started at Cornwall's main hospital to create a new specialist head and neck and vascular surgery ward.
The £325,000 project on Trelawny Wing at the Royal Cornwall Hospital Trust, Treliske, Truro, is part of a multi-million pound investment.
So far £35 million has been spent on new and refurbished facilities with hi-tech equipment – a further £6 million of schemes currently underway.
A large part of the programme involves moving different medical and surgical specialities so they are closer to related services.
Dr Paul Upton, medical director at the trust said: "Our plan centres around the creation of 'hot' and 'cold' hubs within the Trelawny Wing and Tower Block at the hospital.
"Broadly that means putting our emergency and higher complexity services in the Trelawny Wing – our 'hot' hub – and planned and less complex services in the Tower Block – our 'cold' hub.
"That way patients arriving at the emergency department with major trauma or those more likely need intensive care, specialist scans or hi-tech facilities, such as our radiology suite, will have them all in close proximity."
The specialist head and neck and vascular surgical ward, which will be named Wheal Coates ward is the next part of the project. Works include providing a head and neck treatment room.
