Opposition spokesman for the Illawarra Ryan Park is pushing for progress on Bulli Hospital's centre of excellence for aged care.
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It has been six months since $14.46 million was allocated to the Illawarra Shoalhaven Local Health District project as part of the $100 million Restart Illawarra infrastructure fund.
IRT will add a further $10 million to the project in a public-private partnership that will fund the refurbishment of the 60-bed aged care centre and the addition of 60 new aged care beds.
"The establishment of an aged care centre of excellence at Bulli Hospital means the hospital will remain open, when there had been concerns it would close," Mr Park said.
"The successful bid also means that elderly people and their carers will have access to better services and state-of-the-art services.
"But I'm very keen to see the project commence as soon as possible and will continue to pester the [state] government to get on with the development of that project, as well as the other successful projects [from the Restart fund]."
Illawarra Shoalhaven Local Health District director of integrated care, planning and performance Michelle Noort said the short submission phase for the fund meant much of the planning and preparation was being done now.
"We're doing some geological survey work to see where we build, how we build and how we connect the different parts of the buildings together," she said.
"The timing is dependent on what we're building on and how much work we will need to do on refurbishing the existing part of the building.
"All that assessment is being undertaken now, although we would envisage that we would be starting to see some action by the beginning of next year and something definitive by 2016."
Ms Noort said the $25 million project would be just the start of turning the site into a centre of excellence for aged care.
Mr Park said he supported the public-private partnership as long as public access was assured, and the urgent primary care centre remained on site.
"We want to make sure those services remain and are enhanced so it becomes a 24-hour facility."
Ms Noort said there was "no intention" to close the primary care centre.
