A BOLD £130m plan to reorganise and modernise NHS hospitals on Tyneside has been announced.

The six-year project will see huge amounts of private funding used to build new facilities. Despite recent criticism, all the work will be carried out under the Gov- ernment's controversial Private Finance Initiative (PFI)

The move will create new cancer treatment and kidney care facilities in a block to be constructed at the Freeman Hospital, Newcastle.

The city's Royal Victoria Infirmary (RVI) will see large-scale demolition of outdated buildings to make way for a new accident and emergency department and all the back-up facilities associated with such a unit.

The new facilities at the RVI will also house the Regional Neurosciences Centre, which will transfer from its current home in Newcastle General Hospital.

Other units to move across the city from the General to the RVI site will include the famous SCIDS (Severe Combined Immuno Deficiency Syndrome) unit, which provides specialist care for children who have to be treated in a protective bubble. Newcastle is the only city outside London with such a facility.

The North-East Infectious Disease Unit will also transfer from the General to the RVI.

Once the new buildings are completed, services will transfer from the General site, releasing a large inner-city area for a variety of uses.

If all goes according to plan, the cancer and kidney centres are expected to open in autumn 2005, with the RVI facilities opening the following year.

Sir Miles Irving, chairman of the Newcastle-upon-Tyne Hospitals NHS Trust, said: "These new facilities will help our staff to provide the best possible care for patients, meeting the highest standards. It is a welcome boost for staff and patients alike to know that we shall secure the investment required to build hospitals fit for the 21st Century."