Patients will finally get promised new facilities at Crawley Hospital after the government lifted a year-long ban on a shake-up of health services.

Crawley Hospital will get a new day surgery unit, a surgical rehabilitation centre and a refurbished walk-in children's assessment unit.

The first major change will see a new renal unit opening at Crawley next month. Until now sufferers in Mid Sussex have had to travel to Brighton for renal surgery.

Work on the day surgery unit will begin next January, and is due to be ready by next summer.

The centre will allow patients to have planned, non-emergency operations without having to stay overnight.

The government delayed the work for further reviews of proposals to reconfigure services between Crawley Hospital and East Surrey Hospital in Redhill.

But health minister Hazel Blears has now given the go-ahead to the Surrey and Sussex Health Authority.

When the plans were first mooted in 1999, opponents including the Crawley Hospital Campaign protested that Crawley was being downgraded.

East Surrey Hospital in Redhill will have its paediatric and gynaecology departments improved, and will be given a new 60-bed acute ward and an extended accident and emergency clinic.

A long-term review of health provision in Surrey and Sussex beyond 2010 is being carried out by the South East Surrey and North West Sussex (SESNWS) Review Group.