WORCESTER'S new hospital is to become a top-class teaching hospital, training the doctors and nurses of the future.
The University of Birmingham has agreed the new hospital will be given full teaching hospital status from next September.
The move will bring the Worcestershire Royal Hospital in line with other top hospitals such as the Queen Elizabeth and Selly Oak, which are both used to teach University of Birmingham students.
"This is great news for Worcestershire because medical students tend to come back to work at the hospital they are taught in," said Harold Musgrove, chairman of Worcestershire Acute Hospitals NHS Trust.
The University of Birmingham will be sending 60 third-year medical students to the hospital each year, and will increase the number to 80 in September 2003.
Twelve final year students will also be based at the hospital.
A number of students from all five years of the medical school are also being sent to GP practices across the city.
"Worcester will be a very important development for us because there will be a wonderful new hospital there and it has a high standard of clinical care," said Professor William Doe, dean of the University of Birmingham Medical School.
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