REBUILDING Leighton Hospital completely will be quicker and cheaper than repairing the ailing building.

That's the view of the chief executive of the Mid Cheshire Hospitals Foundation Trust, which runs the Crewe hospital, built in the 1970s using reinforced concrete panels (RAAC planks) in the roof which now need replacing on safety grounds.

The hospital trust submitted a bid in September for government funding to rebuild it and now is waiting to see if it has been successful.

Chief executive James Sumner told Cheshire East Council's scrutiny committee the NHS asked about two years ago for all the panels to be replaced in healthcare buildings by 2035.

"Now, unfortunately for Leighton, we're one of seven hospitals in the country that is made nearly exclusively from this material, so it's not just one building or a few buildings it's about 85 per cent of the entire hospital estate," said Mr Sumner.

He said there were three options open to the hospital: replacing the 34,000 planks, which would take a decade and cost about £660m; replacing the roof panels but at the same time building a few extra wards for more space, which would cost nearly £800m or building a new, ultra-modern, future proof hospital which would cost £660m and take about three or four years to complete.

"So we submitted the bid for Leighton to be rebuilt from scratch effectively, only retaining the theatres and critical care unit that are excellent," he said.

A final decision on the funding bid, which has been submitted to the government's New Hospital Programme, is expected by next spring.

In the meantime Leighton bosses are working hard to improve the situation, with other hospitals in the same position, as well as independently.

He said hospital trusts with the plank roofing problems had been given small amounts of cash to look at the issue.

"We received £22m last year to do that, which of course is not enough money to do anything new but certainly enough money to try and sort things out," he said.

"At Leighton we've really been pressing nationally to say, if you can give us some sort of guarantee over £20m to £30m a year, which would seem reasonable, let's try and put this into new building infrastructure rather than propping up old ones.

"So we've put together a proposal to build the first block of that proposed new build, which would be a four ward block to be attached to the existing good infrastructure of our critical care theatres."

He said a lot of the older buildings on the site, which had been used as offices by staff, were being demolished.

"We've leased a new corporate building down in Crewe Business Park, which has got fantastic facilities for staff," he said.

"That's allowing us now to knock down significant parts of the old buildings and get rid of these roof planks from the corporate areas and that will, in turn, give us sufficient car parking space and other space should we need to commence a build on the site, so we're effectively ready to go as of April."

The hospital's new, larger A&E department, currently under construction, is due to open in January and the critical care unit – which Mr Sumner described as "excellent" is being expanded.

He told committee members: "So, fantastic news that we'll have a larger critical care, a much, much larger purpose-built A&E in the New Year, but still frustrating in terms of the waiting for approvals of the problem to do with the wider Leighton Hospital rebuild."