MORE than £7.5 million could be spent on improving and providing new facilities at the Alexandra Hospital, it has been announced.

The news comes after hospital chiefs revealed a staggering £2.75 million had already been spent on upgrading the hospital during the last 12 months.

On Monday, a £670,000 refurbishment of the A&E department was finished, complete with a new waiting area and children's room.

Worcestershire NHS Acute Hospital Trust, which runs the Alexandra, has now submitted several more bids to the NHS Executive.

Among the wish list, which the trust hopes to start implementing in a year, are plans to spend £74,000 on creating a multi-faith centre and £400,000 on building a crche.

Trust chairman Harold Musgrove said: "There is no crche at the hospital at the moment and I think it's one of the weaknesses.

"We want to attract nurses to the Alexandra Hospital and to do that we need one."

Other spending plans include a £400,000 upgrade of the pathology department, which came under strong criticism over its cleanliness from Redditch and Bromsgrove Community Health Council.

A £2 million project to replace the roof with cladding, as opposed to asphalt, has just been completed.

Mr Musgrove said: "We now have more nurses than when the new trust was formed.

"There are 27 more at the Alexandra Hospital and that's not including the 16 Filipino nurses who shall be starting in the next day or so.

"We shall still be 30 or 40 nurses short across the whole of Worcestershire.

"However, we do have new nurses coming from University College of Worcester."

Mr Musgrove added: "The Alexandra Hospital is going to be a top hospital and when the Worcester Hospital is complete, the county will have one of the finest medical facilities in the country."