HEALTH chiefs have identified nine sites in mid and north Hampshire where a new state-of-the-art hospital could be built – but the exact locations have yet to be revealed.

Hampshire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, which runs Winchester, Basingstoke and Andover hospitals, said the location have matched against a criterion of 36 points.

The Chronicle asked the trust for the specific locations but it did not respond with an answer.

The new hospital, part of the Hampshire Together programme, is also expected to include GP and mental health services, amongst other community healthcare organisations.

Shirlene Oh, director of strategy and partnerships, said: “We have completed our site selection study, there were nine sites and there were 36 criteria that we looked at, we have ranked them and we will be progressing to the next stage which is to look at the availability, the affordability and the deliverability of those sites.”

Previously the trust had plans to build a £150million critical treatment hospital on a greenfield site in North Waltham, Basingstoke, on the north side of the A30 near junction 7 of the M3.

However, the scheme was scrapped in 2017 following a joint meeting of North and West Hampshire CCGs which site it would not be affordable.

It is not known whether this site is included within the nine being discussed.

But chief executive Alex Whitfield told directors during a board meeting that the exact site for the new hospital has not yet been chosen.

“We have made no decisions on sites at this stage. We are scoping options at the moment in line with our listening document this is out with the public and we are encouraging as many responses to the listening document,” she added.

“This period over the next few months is very much an input period where we are gathering inputs from the public but also from best practice around the world and from other trusts the passed the HIP 2 (health infrastructure plan) programme and information on the sites from our council colleagues and all sorts of things.”

It is expected that the public will find out the chosen site sooner than originally planned as the trust has been given go-ahead to take a more “aggressive” approach to its timeline.

Ms Oh confirmed that NHS England have given the green light to submit a pre-consultation business case

She added: “It is much more aggressive than the already aggressive timelines that we have proposed. We are going for this approach which means we do need to stand up a few pieces of work quite aggressively now.”

It is expected that a publication consultation will take place January to March next year.