Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust has announced plans to appoint a contractor for its proposed new adult, children, and maternity hospital development.

The trust’s finance director, Simon Worthington, said the publication of the Government’s standardised design principles for new NHS buildings under its Hospital 2.0 plan, expected next month, would help to finalise the design of the £650m hospital.

And this will move the project onto the next stage, putting the hospital on track to open by 2030, the deadline set for delivery of projects as part of the Government’s New Hospitals Programme.

Worthington said: ““Our current hospital designs have already incorporated many of these principles. However, once they are published, we will assess if any further alignment is required to our current plans, and would expect our plans to make significant progress following this and achieve the Government’s 2030 timeline.”

The Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) said it had already provided £27m in development costs for the scheme.

And Worthington said progress had been made in clearing the construction site at the Leeds General Infirmary.

He added: “We will not know the final cost for the hospitals until the design principles have been finalised and our business case has been approved.”

The DHSC has committed to fully funding the project, with a spokesman saying; “We are working closely with the trust to ensure plans are deliverable and use standardised designs to streamline approvals and speed up construction, helping to reduce the time and cost of delivering this important project, aligned with our national approach.”

Part of the trust’s Hospitals of the Future scheme, the new hospital building will provide an adult hospital, a new home for Leeds Children’s Hospital, and the UK’s largest single-site maternity and neonatal centre.