THE new wards at Hereford County Hospital failed to open on time as the project hits delays.

The new £23.6 million wards at the hospital, which were visited by Prime Minister Boris Johnson in August 2020, were meant to open in July 2021.

But the boss of the Wye Valley NHS Trust, which runs the county hospital, said the handover was delayed.

Chief executive Glen Burley said in a report to the trust board that there were problems with "engineering systems" with three new wards, which were designed and built over the last 12 months.

The wards, which will have 72 beds, an increase of 18 beds overall, were meant to handed over to the trust by the contractor at the beginning of July, but this didn't happen.

"Unfortunately issues with some of the engineering systems in the building has meant that the contractor has been unable to hand over the building to the trust," Mr Burley said.

"This is particularly frustrating given the operational pressures on the trust currently.

"The contractors are working closely with specialist engineers to identify and rectify the issues in order to hand over the building formally as soon as possible."

He told the August 6 meeting that the buildings were expected to be handed over week commencing August 9.

The Wye Valley NHS Trust has not confirmed if this happened.

The new wards have replaced the suite of Canadian hutted wards which were built in the 1940s and used extensively during World War II.