Temporary buildings to help ease the pressure on a busy breast cancer unit are expected to be in place before Christmas.

The buildings, set to cost £500,000, will be based close to the Nigel Porter breast cancer unit at the Royal Sussex County Hospital in Brighton.

They will stay in place until a new unit is built at the Rosaz House site opposite the Sussex Cancer Centre at the Royal Sussex.

If Government money for the £13 million development comes through easily, the new unit is expected to open by 2006.

A hospital spokesman said: "We want to maintain our 100 per cent record of making sure all urgent breast care referrals get their first appointment in two weeks.

"The buildings will help create more space at the Nigel Porter unit which will ensure more patients can be seen more quickly."

The unit had struggled to meet Government targets in the past because only one surgeon was working there following the retirement of his colleague.

A second surgeon was eventually appointed in the new year and the unit's clinic and appointments system reassessed.

The unit is now consistently hitting the 100 per cent target or coming close to it.

Brighton and Hove University Hospitals NHS Trust is spending about £500,000 on the development.

The trust had originally planned to move all breast cancer services to Princess Royal Hospital in Haywards Heath, saying the Nigel Porter unit was too small and cramped to cope with increasing demand and there was no other suitable site to build on.

More than 30,000 people signed a petition backed by The Argus calling for services to stay in Brighton and Hove and campaigners put forward the Rosaz House development.

They said public transport links between the city and Haywards Heath were poor which could mean some women missing appointments.

Moving the unit from the Sussex Cancer Centre, where women would get the specialist radiotherapy treatment they needed, was also criticised.

Health bosses eventually bowed to public pressure and medical opinion which said there would better outcomes for patients if all facilities were on one site.

Services will now be kept in the city while existing cancer services are maintained at the Princess Royal.

The temporary buildings would have been set up whether services had been kept in the city or transferred because it would have taken a few years for a new unit to be built at either site.

Hospital staff are hoping to start using the new buildings in about ten weeks' time.