HEALTH records for York Hospital patients could be re-homed in a single new building under a new proposal to be discussed next week.

Hospital bosses want to lease the former Magson warehouse unit at Clifton Moor and use it to house both their patient records and the linen used on its wards.

The move has been prompted by the fact that health records are currently growing at a rate of 35,000 a year - and the places where they are currently stored at York Hospital will be full up this July.

Currently, active patient records are homed in seven different places around the Wigginton Road site.

Kenneth Kay, capital planning manager for the hospital, said in a report: "This has led to inefficiencies in retrieval and filing processes.

"For example, when pulling for a single outpatient clinic, health records staff may have to visit all seven locations which are spread across the hospital site."

Mike Proctor, director of nursing, said: "It's been a problem that's been around for quite a while.

"This offers us a really good, cost-effective solution which enables us to pull together in one building some of the services that we have to have in a way that will improve efficiency."

Under the proposed new system, shuttle trips would travel to the Clifton Moor warehouse to retrieve relevant records.

Systems are being implemented in the NHS that will allow patients' records to be stored electronically - but Mr Kay said in his report that this was still several years away and did not provide the hospital with an immediate solution to its capacity problem.

As for creating a records centre on the hospital site, the only viable place to do this would have been converting the Grove's Chapel building - but that would have meant problems including an estimated capital cost of £1.5 million.

In April, 2005, a report by Oakleigh Consulting Ltd recommended an off-site integrated health records store - a building that would have enough space for all active and inactive health records, with room for ten years' growth.

The new building would also house records from the maternity department and x-rays.

As part of the project, the hospital wants to remove dirty laundry from the hospital to the warehouse site - which would improve the environment of the corridor where it currently accumulates during the day.

Members of the hospital's board are being asked to approve the plans when they meet next week.

Updated: 08:25 Monday, May 29, 2006