PRESSURE is being applied to ensure that Liskeard is given its new hospital, promised for a site at Pengover Park, off Charter Way, sooner rather than later.

Local MP, Colin Breed - after attending a ceremony which saw the foundation stone laid for a new hospital at Bodmin - wrote to secretary of state for health, Alan Milburn, calling for the government to push ahead with plans to build a similar facility for Liskeard.

Negotiations are currently taking place between Cornwall Health Care Trust and two consortia who have shown interest in building, staffing and maintaining the new hospital.

The timetable on building the hospital depends on how quickly these negotiations proceed, a Healthcare Trust spokesman explained.

It is planned that the new hospital will boast 52 beds - of these l9 being medical beds and 33 being for the elderly. Community hospital facilities would be offered together with outpatient and X-Ray facilities.

Mr Breed said: 'Liskeard has waited too long for a new hospital to be built to provide the area with expanded medical services. It is often very difficult for many people to attend hospital appointments in Plymouth and Truro, and the planned new hospital would make getting to hospital services much easier for more patients.'