NHS bosses are set to recommend later this month where a new mental hospital should be built in York.

One option under consideration by NHS Property Services is to create a 21st century hospital behind the Georgian facade of Bootham Park, which was dramatically closed last week amid concerns over its dilapidated condition.

Other options include building a new hospital either at Clifton Park in Rawcliffe or at the site of The Retreat, the charitable, not-for-profit provider of specialist mental health care in Thief Lane.

However, other possible locations are also being looked at, with NHS Property Services in discussions with City of York Council over undisclosed potential sites.

Senior figures in the Vale of York Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) revealed details of the new hospital plans during an exclusive interview yesterday with The Press in the wake of the furore over Bootham Park's sudden closure by the Care Quality Commission.

Dr Mark Hayes, chief clinical officer, said a 'realistic' target date of January 2019 had been set for the opening of the new hospital by Tees, Esk & Wear Valley NHS Trust, (TEWV) which has taken over the running of mental health services in York and surrounding areas.

He said that when a report is issued by NHS Property Services recommending which option - or options - should be pursued, its contents will initially be secret, because it will be commercially sensitive.

Janet Probert, director of partnership commissioning unit, said: "It will be the start of a long and complex process, which must ensure there is value-for-money and the needs of patients are met. A lot of criteria need to be met."

Meanwhile, she understood that all staff at Bootham Park had been temporarily re-deployed following its closure, with some moving with their patients to another hospital in Middlesbrough to ensure continuity of care and others bolstering the work of crisis care team community psychiatric nurses in the York community to assist patients who have been discharged back to their homes.

As previously reported, TEWV chief executive Martin Barkley had written to the CQC to ask it to allow psychiatric outpatient services - currently relocated to Limetree House in Heworth - to return to Bootham Park, where there was much better accessibility. He had also asked for it to allow Bootham Park's 'Place of Safety,' which only opened last year following a £400,000 investment and was in good condition, to re-open.

Mrs Probert said some of the patients on two acute wards which had closed at Bootham Park have gone to hospitals at Northallerton and Middlesbrough, while patients on the 'Place of Safety' unit had gone to Harrogate. Asked whether their re-location had made it difficult or impossible for their friends and relatives to come and visit them, she said relatives were being supported so they could visit, with transport being provided in some individual cases.

Dr Hayes expressed confidence in the ability of TEWV, which took over the running of mental health services in York and Selby last week, to handle the new hospital project, saying it had great experience in the north east in creating new facilities. He said the CQC had said the trust had shown 'outstanding leadership', adding: "That is what is needed in a situation like this."

Mrs Probert said the CQC's decision to close the entire hospital with so little notice had been 'surprising,' and created some difficulties. "But the NHS is good at dealing with a crisis and I've been heartened by the way everyone has risen to the challenge."