Plans to knock down an asbestos-riddled hospital and replace it with a £2.5 million health unit have been approved.
Health bosses say it could take two years before the new building to replace Heanor Memorial Hospital is up and running.
The hospital has been closed to patients since September last year, after the potentially deadly dust was discovered in a boiler room during a routine inspection.
It meant clinics and services had to be moved temporarily to Ilkeston Community Hospital.
At the same time, bosses at the NHS Southern Derbyshire Clinical Commissioning Group said they were trying to find the "best way forward" for the hospital.
One option put forward was demolishing the hospital and Wilmott Street health centre and replacing both with a new £2.5 million building on the hospital site.
The governing body of NHS Southern Derbyshire – the group responsible for buying and overseeing healthcare for 525,000 people in Derby, Amber Valley and the southern part of the county – has given the green light to this proposal.
Andy Layzell, its chief officer, said: "We've put an enormous amount of work into these plans – trying to get people's opinions and understand what they want from start to finish. And we continue to work with people as the new health centre is being designed and built.
"They feel an enormous amount of attachment for the old hospital, and we respect that, but the feedback on these plans has been very positive and we're so grateful and impressed by the way local people have been involved in this process."
Mr Layzell said the new health unit would include the same services plus new ones, although it would not have beds or be equipped for overnight stays.
He said: "We expect that, if everything goes to plan, we should expect to have a new health facility opened in Heanor in early 2017 and have a fully-developed demolition and construction plan which will meet this deadline.
"We have said from the start that any new building would take around two years to build, once a decision about how to proceed was made.
"Proposals still need to be finalised for how the services will fit into a new building and we will work with local people to make sure the design is both fitting for the town and practical in allowing services to stay flexible in the future."
He said, in the meantime, the group aimed to bring back as many health services as possible to Heanor. Blood testing has already returned to the town and the group has organised two beds, offering 24-hour, end-of-life care to patients for two weeks, at Ashfields Care Home.
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