A NEW education centre for medical students will open at the Royal Gwent Hospital next spring, eight years after plans to boost training facilities were first revealed.

A new £800,000 facility is being built behind the main hospital complex, next to the administration and nursing blocks on Friars Field - and it is set to be well-used.

This year, more than 1,000 medical students will spend time in Gwent hospitals, which take more students for part of their training than any other part of Wales except Cardiff and the Vale. Many of them are based at the Royal Gwent.

That represents a 16 per cent increase in just four years, and with work experience programmes set to start up again later this month, training space is at a premium.

Plans for a multi-million pound, state-of-the-art medical education centre on the site of 64 Cardiff Road, on the corner of the Clytha Square, were dashed in May 2007 by opposition from residents and city councillors after years on the drawing board.

But some sort of facility is needed at the Royal Gwent to bridge the gap before the new Specialist and Critical Care Centre - proposed for the Llanfrechfa Grange Hospital site - is built. That could be four or five years away.

The centre being built at the Royal Gwent includes a multidisciplinary library service for the hospital, with 24-hour access to a large book, journal and study area, and an extensive computer suite.

There will also be a clinical skills lab, seminar room and a common room and locker area for undergraduate medical students, and a simulation and clinical skills suite for use by all professions in Gwent Healthcare Trust.

The two-storey building will also house the trust's medical photography and illustration centre. It will be completed next April.