Facilities were built at Morriston to house the centre

The expansion will boost facilities for children and allow more patients to be treated.

The unit is competing for the right to become a regional specialist centre to cover Wales and south-west England.

Health Minister Dr Brian Gibbons performed a turf-cutting ceremony and work is expected to last 16 months.

The centre currently treats around 750 patients a year, half of whom require stays in hospital. About half of these patients are children.

The extension will result in the unit having two fully operational burns theatres and an additional fourth plastics theatre.

There will also be a partial refurbishment of current facilities and separate facilities for children.

Treating victims

Lindsey Jones, senior project manager for Swansea NHS Trust, said: "There is a lot of emphasis on separating adults and children and ensuring the centre is as child-friendly as possible.

"For example, children currently attending the hospital as outpatients are accommodated in the same area as adults, some of who can be quite badly injured and cause concern to a child.

"This scheme will give children their own separate space and will include a play area."

Mr Jones added that the extra plastics theatre would give the trust capacity to meet 2009 Welsh Assembly Government targets.

The developers said the 16-month building time would offer the "quickest possible development... with minimum disruption for all".

'Vital service'

Speaking at the turf-cutting ceremony, Dr Gibbons said: "The Welsh Centre for Burns and Plastic Surgery has a growing reputation as one of the largest and best burns services anywhere in Europe.

"The centre provides this vital service for the populations of Mid, West and South Wales and often for patients from England who are transferred with severe burns."

The centre opened in September 1994, following the transfer of the service from the burns unit at St Lawrence Hospital, Chepstow.

It played a leading role in treating victims of the explosion at the Corus steelworks in 2001 in which three workers died and five others suffered serious burns.

Health officials are hopeful that Morriston will be given the go ahead for regional burns unit status later this year.

Last November, the burns unit received another boost when the Healing Foundation announced a 20-year commitment, also worth �10m, to set up a burns research centre.