NEWPORT councillors are being asked to back a call for money to be spent on the Royal Gwent Hospital as plans for a radical shake-up of health care remain suspended.

Cllrs David Williams and Ed Townsend say the Royal Gwent's buildings do not meet health requirements but there could be a 10-year wait for new hospitals.

A motion to next week's full council meeting wants the council to ask health minister Edwina Hart for a reappraisal of the clinical implications of building a new specialist critical care unit at the two available sites in Newport and Cwmbran "bearing in mind an opening date as late as 2019".

Assembly bosses have chosen Llanfrechfa Grange as the preferred site for a super-hospital but have refused to commit to a date.

But Newport city leaders have consistently called for the SCCC to be built on the site of former Whiteheads steelworks which is also in public ownership and not far away from the Royal Gwent Hospital.

Earlier this year, Mrs Hart halted planning work on the Clinical Futures plan which also includes new general hospitals in Newport and Abergavenny.

Conservative Cllr Williams is due to move the motion to the council meeting on Tuesday which asks the council to note that the health minister has indicated it could be as much as 10 years before the Gwent Clinical Futures programme was implemented.

It is seconded by Liberal Democrat Cllr Ed Townsend, deputy leader of the council and cabinet member for economic development and regeneration.

Their motion says that the Royal Gwent Hospital buildings no longer meet the health requirements of the people of the area and that additional money would have to spent on short term changes to cover the expected delay in implementing Clinical Futures.