A £5.5m project to improve St Helier Hospital's accident and emergency department and urgent care centre is almost complete.

The finishing touches are being applied to the urgent care centre, which treats people with minor injuries, while work to expand the A&E department is also almost finished.

The remaining work will see the entrance to A&E and the urgent care centre combined at the front of the hospital, leaving a new waiting room and reception left to complete.

The finished project will provide 17 new A&E bays, three ambulance "streamer" bays - where ambulance patients receive an initial assessment - and nine new bays at the centre.

It will ultimately allow the hospital to treat up to 13,500 extra patients a year, as well as bring in new new centre staff to treat more complex cases.

The project is being funded by the Department of Health, with the hospital contributing a further £800,000 to create a new paediatric A&E and computer system to track patients' medical histories.

Matthew Hopkins, chief executive of Epsom, Sutton and St Helier hospitals, said: “I am delighted that work is now underway on the final phase of this project.

“It is excellent news for our hospital and will provide long-lasting benefits for our patients, who will receive the urgent treatment they require in a welcoming and modern facility – one that we are all really proud of.

“We are seeing more and more patients every year and it is vital that we run our departments as smoothly and effectively as we can. "By creating extra space in the unit, revising the layout of the department and refurbishing it completely, we’ll be able to continue that work.

“The completion of the entrance will be the finishing touch to a truly splendid centre, which will only help us continue to provide excellent care for our patients.”