New hospitals programme will take decade longer than Tories planned – Streeting
The Health Secretary said the new timetable was ‘honest, funded and can actually be delivered’.
Building the 40 new hospitals promised by the previous government will take at least a decade longer than planned, the Health Secretary has said.
Wes Streeting accused the Conservatives of failing to fund their government’s 2019 promise of providing the new facilities by 2030, saying the pledge had been “built on the shaky foundation of false hope”.
Setting out a new timetable, Mr Streeting said construction of the new hospitals would proceed in four “waves”, with the final part not beginning until between 2035 and 2039.
The first wave is already under construction, and set to be completed in the next three years.
These include four hospitals in Dorset, the Cedar Programme in the North East, the Oriel Eye Hospital in London and the National Rehabilitation Centre near Loughborough.
The plan includes rebuilding the seven hospitals affected by re-inforced autoclaved aerated concrete (Raac), with construction work beginning between 2027 and 2029.
The same wave will include nine other hospitals where construction will begin between 2025 and 2029, including Poole Hospital, Milton Keynes Hospital and North Manchester General Hospital.
Third and fourth waves of nine hospitals each will begin during the 2030s, with construction of the Royal Preston, Nottingham City, Royal Berkshire, Hampshire and Eastbourne District General hospitals set to start between 2037 and 2039.
Mr Streeting said the new timetable was “honest, funded and can actually be delivered”.
He added: “It is a serious, credible plan to build the hospitals our NHS needs.”
Promising that all the new units would be delivered, Mr Streeting said he had secured investment averaging £3 billion a year, which he described as part of the largest capital investment in the NHS since the previous Labour government.
He also announced a new framework for contracting out construction of the new hospitals, saying this would ensure the new facilities were delivered “as quickly as possible”.
Documents released by the Department for Health and Social Care suggested the programme would not reach the £3 billion per year figure until it had reached a “steady state” in the early 2030s, with the “pre-construction phase” requiring less spending.
The announcement follows a review of the Conservatives’ £20 billion New Hospitals Programme, which Mr Streeting launched shortly after taking office in July, claiming the previous government’s plans were undeliverable and had not been properly funded.
But shadow health secretary Edward Argar said Mr Streeting had put progress made under the previous government “at risk” by “kicking the can down the road”.
He said: “Today’s announcement will come as a bitter blow to trusts, staff and crucially patients who believed the party opposite and will now be left waiting even longer for vital investment.
“Yet again, before the election, they talked the talk, but it’s patients who lose out when this Government fails to deliver.”
The Liberal Democrats accused the Government of trying to “bury bad news” on the day of Donald Trump’s inauguration as US president.
Helen Morgan, the party’s health spokesperson, said: “Instead of ducking scrutiny, the Health Secretary needs to publish the full impact assessment of these delays.
“Patients have a right to know just how at risk they are, and how many more delays they will have to suffer as a result of the Government’s decision.”
Hospital leaders described the announcement as a “major blow”, saying many hospitals are already in poor condition and might not last into the 2030s or 2040s.
Saffron Cordery, interim chief executive of NHS Providers, said: “Trusts who are part of the New Hospital Programme account for more than 40% (£5.7 billion) of the total bill for backlog repairs and maintenance.
“Today’s announcement will make a difficult situation even more challenging.”
Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust was expecting to see its new St Mary’s Hospital delivered under the programme before 2030.
Work on the new unit will now not begin until 2035 at the earliest, with trust chief executive Tim Orchard calling the delay “devastating news”.
He said: “We understand that the Government’s New Hospital Programme must be affordable but the simple truth is that St Mary’s Hospital, in particular, will not last until the 2040s.”
James Marsh, deputy chief executive of St George’s, Epsom and St Helier Hospitals, said his trust was already spending £150 million a year to prop up its existing buildings.
After news that work on the trust’s new specialist emergency care centre would not begin until the early 2030s, Dr Marsh said: “We have already had to condemn and demolish one of our wards.
“It’s only a matter of time before other parts of our hospital become unsafe for treating patients. We now need to plan and prepare for the catastrophic failure of our buildings which could mean moving patient care into temporary buildings.”
