WHIPPS Cross Hospital will receive £23m to redevelop its accident and emergency department, it has been announced today.

The cash will be used to fund a new A & E, an urgent care centre and an extended emergency medicine centre which will have 40 extra beds.

Douglas Ward, Whipps Cross estates and facilities director, said: “This is a major development for us but one that will allow our services to cope with increasing demand from the local community in a way that will reflect our pledge to offer quality patient care in the modern setting they expect.”

More than 100,000 people are admitted to Whipps Cross A & E each year, with 500 emergency visits a week, making it one of the busiest in London.

The announcement is likely to be seen as a victory for the thousands of residents, health professionals and campaigners who backed a Guardian campaign to save the hospital's services in 2006.

Dr Alan Hakim, a consultant physician who backed the campaign, said: “I am absolutely delighted. “Over the last two years we have been working very hard to improve emergency services.

“The new build, with all of its modern facilities, is another important part of this process - all of it designed to enhance patient care.

“Allowing us to go ahead with this development is such a huge vote of confidence.

“Emergency care is core to the hospitals day to day activity and the services we provide to the community as a whole.”

The new A&E building will treat patients by a single entrance, and will have a paediatric A&E, an emergency elective care unit and a increased resuscitation unit.

Building work is due to begin at the end of the year and is expected to take two years to complete.

The Government's Fit for the Future review, in 2006, examined the possibility of downgrading Whipps to an ambulatory or community care cente.

But this was scrapped following public pressure.