Salford Royal Hospital's new £67m emergency centre plans approved

The new building, featuring a rooftop helipad, will sit between the Hope Building and the Clinical Sciences Building

Plans have been approved for a new £67m centre for treating patients from across Greater Manchester with life-threatening injuries.

A new major trauma department is set to be built at Salford Royal Hospital after NHS England agreed to make it the main site for emergencies in the area.

It will also have a new helipad so air ambulances will no longer have to land on a nearby field.

Work is expected to start in February and be completed in early 2021.

The four-to-six storey building with a rooftop helipad will sit between the current Hope Building and the Clinical Sciences Building.

It will hold five theatre suites and space for 24 beds, and employ 185 full-time employees, the Local Democracy Reporting Service said.

Hospital bosses believe it could save 50 lives per year.

The A&E department at Salford Royal Hospital treated 64,000 patients last year

Planning documents said the current location for helicopter landing - as well as the transfer time between it and the hospital - meant that the hospital was not currently seen as a "desirable" location for high-priority patients.

"When someone suffers an accident which involves multiple or serious injuries that could result in death or serious disability, the speed at which they can get specialist medical help can be the difference between life and death, or between recovering and recovering well.

"In some situations, the quickest and best way to get a patient to their Emergency Department is by helicopter. A helipad on the hospital site is required to allow for this," the documents read.

Only 22 air ambulance patients were treated at Salford Royal in 2018.

The A & E department treated 64,000 patients last year, despite only being designed for a capacity of 30,000.