There may be ongoing change on the way health and social services are being delivered, but investment continues with a new Critical Care Building nearing completion at the Royal Hospitals site in west Belfast.

Speaking today, the NI Health Minister Edwin Poots has said all patients will benefit from a new £152m state-of-the-art building, with modern fit for purpose facilities.

The Minister was speaking as he took part in a 'topping out' ceremony at the new Critical Care Building at the Royal Victoria Hospital (RVH).

He said: "This new building is a much needed project and these new facilities will benefit from the latest innovations in design and technology and provide regional emergency and trauma services to some of the most severely injured people in Northern Ireland."

The first six floors of the building will include an emergency department, main theatres and an adult critical care unit.

The top three floors will house postnatal beds and maternity outpatients.

DUP MLA and Executive Minister Poots added: "Along with a new maternity building to include delivery theatres, antenatal beds, birthing rooms and a neonatal unit, linked to the Critical Care Building, the construction will also permit the delivery of first class regional maternity services in Northern Ireland."

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He added that construction of the Critical Care Building is due to be completed in 2012, with the new linked Maternity building due for completion in 2014. The proposed Children's hospital will be delivered as a separate project.

This is the third major project in the Royal Victoria Hospital redevelopment programme. Phase 1, the main hospital building was completed in 2006 and Phase 2a, the Imaging Centre was completed in 2007.

The investment comes at a time of dramatic change as it emerged on Tuesday that a major review of the health service is at an advanced stage.

Edwin Poots said the review, by John Compton, was expected to be the biggest in recent years and has been forecast to be controversial and radical.

The report's view is that it is likely only to be possible to provide resilient, sustainable major acute services on five to seven sites.

This is one of the 99 recommendations - and the one most likely to trigger debate - as it means a huge reduction in the number of hospitals.

The review suggests the current number could be cut from 10 as early as 2016 leaving as few as five - at worst - by that time.

DUP Minister Edwin Poots said in the Assembly that 'Transforming Your Care, A Review of Health and Social Care' contains a compelling set of proposals for the future of health and social care services in Northern Ireland.

However, it is at cost, as elsewhere, the SDLP South Down MLA Karen McKevitt said any subsequent downgrading of the status of Daisy Hill in Newry as a full-service acute hospital would make delivery of a coherent and consistent health service impossible.

Commenting on the Compton report which recommends cutting acute hospitals from ten to five, she said: "It is very important that acute services and particularly A&E are located on the basis of operational rather than administrative requirements.

"The consequences for my own constituency would be terrible as a glance at the map will show. How on earth could A&E cover from Belfast or Craigavon stretch out to Kilkeel or Attical?

"Daisy Hill is in fact ideally placed to become the focal point of cross-border co-operation on acute services and it is in that context that we need to debate the reconfiguration of the health service," she said, yesterday.

See: Hospital Sites 'Facing 50% Cut'

(BMcC)