PLANS for the £90-million transformation of Bristol's city centre hospitals have been submitted to the city council for approval.

The project would see an eight-storey block built at the back of the main Bristol Royal Infirmary (BRI) building to create room to treat adults and children, as well as house administrative staff and a restaurant.

The plans, which include proposals to improve the appearance of the Upper Maudlin Street entrance to the main hospital, have been submitted to Bristol City Council.

The new block also includes medical and surgical assessment departments for patients admitted from A&E and an overflow for Bristol Children's Hospital.

It would enable University Hospitals Bristol NHS Foundation Trust (UHBristol), which runs the nine city centre hospitals, to move all care out of the outdated Old Building and much of the King Edward wing.

A former nurses' home in Terrell Street – between the BRI A&E and Bristol Haematology and Oncology Centre – would be demolished to make way for the new block.

As part of the plans, an extension to the children's hospital would accommodate the paediatric burns and neurological units, which will move from Frenchay ahead of it becoming a community hospital.

The project still relies on full backing from the NHS and the details of the proposals could change.

But UHBristol must ensure it can handle the transfer of the remaining children's services from Frenchay in 2014.

Andy Headdon, strategic development programme director for the trust, said: "Currently we have got all the right departments but not quite in the right place.

"If the plan gets the go-ahead, it will allow us to introduce an integrated assessment unit next to the existing emergency department, which will bring together medical and surgical assessment units and create an adjoining medical and surgical short stay ward.

"This will speed up the flow of patients through the hospital and improve patient care through the integration of all assessment, diagnostics and treatment services for short stay acute patients."

Under the plans, most services will move out of the Old Building across the road from the main BRI site, leaving it surplus to requirements.

Decisions about the future of the Old Building and the Bristol General site, which will become redundant when a new community hospital is built in south Bristol, have not yet been taken but the possibility of them being sold has not been ruled out.

Work would need to be completed by 2014 if the application is approved.