A PROPOSED £2.6 million upgrade to Airedale Hospital's x-ray department has received the go-ahead from health bosses.

Members of Airedale NHS Trust board agreed a funding package that will involve replacing the ageing equipment which has been in use since the hospital opened 30 years ago.

Brand new up-to-the-minute scanning equipment, which at present arrives in a van on hire every week, will be installed.

The project will also involve expanding into the hospital's former theatres, which have stood empty since a new theatre block was completed about five years ago.

Hospital bosses want to start the project in April and have it completed within two years.

Director of planning and marketing Doug Farrow said: "Over the years the replacement of x-ray equipment has become a more acute issue as equipment got older.

"The department was designed 30 years ago and since then there have been significant changes. We need to re-design the unit to cope with the increased numbers of people using it and the improved range of services.

"We want to make a start in April. There will be a couple of difficult years because the workmen will have to work around the department. We can plan for that and work through it.

"When it is finished it will be a state-of-the-art department linked to the haematology and oncology day unit and breast clinic."

The cost of building work, which will be carried out in nine stages, will be financed from the hospital's capital resources.

Director of finance Janet Crouch said the trust would have to dip into the £8 million it received from the sale of Scalebor Park at Burley to help cover the engineering costs.

The new scanning equipment will be paid for through a partnership deal with a private financier, and negotiations with two shortlisted companies are close to a conclusion.

Mr Farrow said that over the last year the hospital had upgraded its x-ray equipment in the A and E department with money from the Government's modernisation fund.

He added that the first phase of the project to replace the hospital's failing angiography equipment had just been completed.

Airedale re-opened its breast cancer diagnosis service this month following its closure last summer when consultant oncologist Dr Clive Orgles left.

A new consultant has been appointed and staff have been retrained.