Hospital building plans confirmed

Boris Johnson (pictured) revealed a list of 40 hospitals, adding that the competition for funding for eight further schemes should include new mental health hospitals.

Among the 40 hospitals, four are already under construction and include two affected by the collapse of Carillion – the Midland Metropolitan Hospital and the Royal Liverpool Hospital.

Four projects are pending final approval – in Cumbria, Northumberland, Greater Manchester and Nottingham.

A further 32 schemes are being developed under the Health Infrastructure Plan (HIP), including six in the first phase (HIP1), unveiled last autumn and which are due to be completed by 2025. The 26 schemes in the second phase (HIP2) are scheduled for completion in the subsequent five years.

There is some confusion around funding for the schemes – when the HIP was announced, capital funding of £2.7bn was allocated for the six schemes in phase one together with £100m of seed capital for the phase two schemes. However, in his latest announcement, the prime minister said the funding would be £3.7bn, while a Department of Health and Social Care spokesperson added that this includes £1.6bn of new money.

The figures do not obviously marry up, but the spokesperson said this is due to construction of the hospitals spanning more than one spending review period.

The Department spokesperson said the £3.7bn funding is for the next four years, covering the upcoming comprehensive spending review period. As the HIP1 projects will be under construction during this time – they are due to be completed by 2025 – some of the £2.8bn funding is included in the £3.7bn figure. This means some of the original £2.8bn will be carried forward into the next spending review period.

The spokesperson added: ‘We are fully committed to funding all the new schemes, which will be delivered by 2030.’

They also confirmed the £3.7bn does not include schemes already under construction, including those that were being built by Carillion prior to the company’s demise.

The prime minister said: ‘The dedication and tireless efforts of our nurses, doctors and all healthcare workers have kept the NHS open throughout this pandemic. But no matter what this virus throws at us we are determined to build back better and deliver the biggest hospital building programme in a generation.  

‘From Morpeth to Milton Keynes, we are building 40 new hospitals across England to level up our NHS so more people have top-class healthcare services in their local area.’

Nuffield Trust chief executive Nigel Edwards said the funding would be welcomed. But he added: ‘This funding does not make up for the fact that the health service has not had a proper strategic view of capital investment for many years. It continues to reflect the rolling feast after famine approach, which makes planning difficult. We currently have no capital budget set past next year, so this is no guarantee the NHS overall will get any more than in the past.

‘This spending must have future-proofing in mind. Investing in hospitals without complementary investment in primary and mental health care facilities as well as social care will lead us to fall into the same mistakes as previous building programmes.’

Saffron Cordery, deputy chief executive of NHS Providers, added: ‘We will need an appropriately funded, long term, NHS capital strategy, hopefully at the comprehensive spending review in November. Building a new, average mid-sized, hospital costs around £500m, so this is just an initial down payment. If the government wants these hospitals built in the time it is specifying, trusts will need the rest of the capital allocated as soon as possible.’