UP TO 25 new jobs could be created if plans to extend Southampton General Hospital are approved.

Health bosses want to add two floors of accommodation on top of the hospital’s haemotology building.

The application to council planners by the University Hospital Southampton NHS Foundation Trust (UHS) is part of the hospital’s wider estate strategy.

Among the aims of the strategy are providing more space for expanding services, improving the physical state of the hospital and increasing productivity.

Earlier this year plans to build two new store units were approved, while UHS is also building two new six-bed wards for patients requiring high and low-risk isolation.

If the trust’s plans are approved by planners, the expansion would see two new wards added on to the hospital’s west wing.

One ward would contain hospital beds and aim to ease the pressure on existing beds which has been heightened by pressure on the hospital’s accident and emergency department.

On the level above that ward, a new endoscopy suite would be created. The current endoscopy unit, used for examining patients’ organs and cavities, is limited in capacity and struggling to meet current demand.

The new unit would contain modern facilities and treat an extra 80 patients each week.

The city council’s planning panel will decide whether to grant permission for the expansion at a meeting tomorrow.