SINGLE rooms for all patients are being proposed for the multi-million-pound Caerphilly Local General Hospital.

The idea, which adds £3.5 million to the cost of the 276-bed hospital, has been built into plans with improvement of infection control, and privacy and dignity in mind.

Current national guidelines recommend that new hospitals should have 50-100 per cent single rooms.

Gwent Healthcare Trust is planning on the basis that providing single rooms for all from the outset will minimise the need for changes after the hospital is built.

A final decision on single rooms for all is unlikely to be made until the spring of 2007, when the final business case for the hospital is completed.

A hydrotherapy pool and linked services costing £1.1m have also been added to the plans for the hospital, along with £300,000 of technology to allow specialists to use telemedicine, such as linking with colleagues in other hospitals for case conferences.

The hospital is planned for a site at Ystrad Fawr, in Ystrad Mynach, which has been surveyed to assess the flood risk, due to its proximity to the River Rhymney.

The trust, Caerphilly council, the Environment Agency and water specialists have been developing a project to minimise the risk.

The area's road system has also been assessed to predict the impact of increased traffic to and from a new hospital and from proposed new council offices two miles away at Tredomen.

An estimated £10m must be spent to improve the roads, though details of where the work will be done and who pays for it have not been released.

This sum is not included in the estimated cost of the hospital, which overall has risen from £97m last autumn to £108m.

With the exception of Redwood, in Rhymney, all other hospitals in the county borough will close when the new hospital opens, including Caerphilly District Miners Hospital. These closures will save around £23m a year.

Completion is expected during 2010. The hospital will have a 24-hour emergency department, a diagnostic and treatment centre, a children's clinic, a care centre for stroke and other patients requiring rehabilitation, a midwife-led birth unit, and a mental health unit.