Oxford is to get a new £28m cancer centre, Health Secretary Alan Milburn announced this afternoon.

The unit at the Churchill Hospital, Headington, will replace outdated premises which are unable to deliver the standard of treatment demanded by the Government's NHS Cancer Plan.

It will replace the existing cancer centre which uses a 1940s military hospital and temporary buildings.

Work on the new hospital is due to start in 2003, and it should open by 2008, the Government said.

It will provide outpatient services, radiotherapy, chemotherapy, surgery and other treatment.

The bid by the Oxford Radcliffe Hospitals NHS Trust was one of 29 new hospital plans submitted to Mr Milburn by hospitals throughout England. Originally he intended to approve just 18 over two years - but decided the quality was so high that he gave the go-ahead for all 29 over three years.

He accepted the Oxford trust's claim that the existing premises were inadequate to deliver the existing NHS Cancer Plan.

The investment comes as the Government attempts to boost NHS hospitals' infrastructure.

Mr Milburn told MPs this afternoon that one third of England's hospitals were built before the NHS was founded and one tenth dated from Victorian times.

He said: "You cannot deliver 21st century health care in 19th century buildings."

He said there were too many shoddy hospital buildings and too much outdated and unreliable equipment which had to be replaced.