30.09.19
Prime Minister announces ‘biggest infrastructure investment' in the NHS
Boris Johnson and Matt Hancock have announced that the government will provide £13bn for 40 new hospitals to be built for the NHS.
Following a trip to North Manchester general hospital yesterday, the Prime Minister committed to building 40 new hospitals in the NHS, although the announcement has been met with some controversy and some are claiming the announcement will actually just see six new hopsitals.
On his first day as PM he pledged the upgrade of 20 NHS hospitals, but now he seems to have taken it a step further; with £13bn being made available for the NHS to have state-of-the-art facilities built all over the country.
The Health Infrastructure Plan was outlined in more detail this morning in a speech by the health secretary, Matt Hancock, who said:
“If you’re sitting in a down-at-heel hospital like the Princess Alexandra in Harlow or the North Manchester General, where I was yesterday and there’s not enough space to do the job properly and the roof is leaking, know this, we won’t just fix the roof. We’re going to build you a whole new hospital.”
Plans for new hospitals in Leeds, Leicester, Winchester, and in three dozen other towns and cities across the country.
Some, like the new Addenbrooke’s in Cambridge will be world-leading research hospitals. Others will be community hospitals like in Devon and Dorset.
The package includes £200m to replace MRI, CT scanners and breast cancer screening equipment, so that no scanner in the NHS is more than 10 years old.
There will be £2.7bn upfront cash provided for the six projects in the first phase that are ready to go including, Whipps Cross Hospital, Epsom and St Helier Trust, West Hertfordshire Trust, Princess Alexandra Hospital Trust, University Hospitals of Leicester Trust, and Leeds Teaching Hospitals Trust.
The remaining 34 in the second phase following the go-ahead, with immediate funding they need to develop their plans. A total funding of £13bn over the next decade.
This is on top of the £34bn announced to run the NHS day to day, making it the largest financial commitment to the NHS in its history.
In a speech posted on twitter yesterday, Johnson said the plan is the ‘biggest infrastructure investment in the NHS for a generation’.
He went on to say: “We have amazing staff, amazing doctors and nurses working in facilities that don’t do justice to their devotion”
Image Credit: Stefan Rousseau/PA Wire/PA Images