HOSPITAL boss Harold Musgrove thinks the new Worcestershire hospital will be the best in the country when it is unveiled.

The Worcestershire Acute Hospitals NHS Trust chairman, who last week announced he would be stepping down at the end of the year, has said he believes the hospital will be "superb" when it is completed next year.

He also praised staff at the county's hospitals, and said they would help make the new arrangements run smoothly.

Mr Musgrove claimed work was coming to the end of a phase and if he had not decided to step down now, he would not have been able to leave until the new hospital was fully up and running, which could be another two years.

"When you look at it, Worcestershire is going to have some of the finest facilities in the whole of the UK," said Mr Musgrove, who has been chairman of the Trust since April last year.

"Around £3.5m has been spent on the education centre alone, and plenty more money is being spent at Worcester and Redditch."

But despite the new hospital, Mr Musgrove has admitted he is still worried about the winter beds situation, with 70 beds still being held up by patients who are waiting to be discharged.

The patients, who are often elderly, cannot be discharged as they are too poorly to live at home, but there are no spaces in nursing and residential homes across the county for them to be moved to.

"We will have enough beds if social services and the health authority find these dear people places to go," said Mr Musgrove.

"It isn't acceptable to have good nurses who are searching for beds for new patients when they know full well there are patients who have been waiting more than a month to be moved."

The new hospital is being handed over to the Trust on January 1, when staff can start organising equipment.

The final move, organised with precision planning, will be made in mid-March.

Mr Musgrove said plans were all on schedule, and 1,500 out of the 2,000 rooms in the new building off Newtown Road were already completed.