Health managers today unveiled plans for a £36 million hospital which will revolutionise healthcare for children.

The outdated Royal Alexandra Hospital for Sick Children, in Dyke Road, Brighton, is to be pulled down and replaced with a multi-storey building at the Royal Sussex County Hospital in Eastern Road.

The development will include 100 in-patient beds in a mix of single and four-bedded units, three operating theatres, diagnostic and treatment facilities, including X-ray, and an intensive care unit.

There are also plans for a cancer care day centre, parent accommodation and children's play areas.

Young patients at the Royal Alex were given a hand in designing the hospital, telling managers at theatre workshops what they would like to see in the new building.

Brighton and Sussex University Hospitals Trust chairman Glynn Jones said: "This building will provide superb facilities in a really exciting design that children have had a hand in designing.

"We will have the best of both worlds, with excellent nursing care in a superb building."

The move will be paid for through a government private finance initiative, with the new hospital expected to open in 2007.

Project director Richard Glenn said: "We are all pretty excited about how this project is coming together.

"For a long time the Alex has been isolated from a lot of services which exist at the County site and there has been a lot of movement backwards and forwards, which puts the children at risk. One of the things we wanted to do is reduce that risk."

Paediatric surgeon Varadarajan Kalidasan added: "The Alex is about 130 years old and has been a centre of great affection.

"The important thing to bear in mind when you move a hospital is to maintain the ethos of family friendliness the Alex is known for."

Mr Kalidasan, who chaired the committee which set the plans for the new hospital in train five years ago, added: "We put together various plans for how we wanted to work and how we wanted to deliver paediatric care in the 21st Century.

"All the staff who have seen the project so far are very excited."

The Royal Alex says staff, patients and visitors are in favour of the move because the hospital was getting too cramped.