Hampshire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust has confirmed the planned location for the proposed £150m new 24-hour consultant-led critical treatment hospital as a greenfield site at North Waltham, near M3 Junction 7.
HHFT bosses say this is the best location to serve local patients, and the site will have a £5m specialist cancer centre, connected to the main hospital.
Chief Executive Mary Edwards said: "Our aim is to improve care and provide even safer services for the people across Hampshire.
"To achieve this, our plan is to provide the majority of care for people in their local hospitals in Andover, Basingstoke and Winchester while we create a new critical treatment hospital for the sickest patients, such as those with heart attacks and strokes and major trauma."
HHFT say that the new critical treatment hospital will care for the sickest patients, about 15% of the total, and the project will allow them to enhance the services they offer at their hospitals in Winchester, Basingstoke and Andover.
Winchester MP Steve Brine, who has long campaigned on local health issues, said: "This could be very exciting for us; a world class NHS facility with 24/7 consultant cover, something we don't have right now in Winchester, and a modern district general hospital at the RHCH.
"Nobody in their right mind, listening to the strong clinical case being made, should dismiss the new hospital out of hand, and I certainly do not because the NHS has to be about securing the best outcomes for us when we are acutely unwell.
"There are many questions that remain, such as travel connections to the site and the implications for complex births, but we should also remember this facility is a long way from being realised as things stand today."
Pictured; Steve chairs his second public meeting on RHCH in September
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You can read all about Steve's work on our local NHS, including two public meetings he has held this year as well as a constituency-wide Health Check survey here
