The Prime Minister has confirmed a £3.7bn funding package to facilitate the construction of 40 new hospitals around the England by 2030, with a further eight schemes invited to bid for future funding.
Talked about over the coming months, the funding announcement comes as the first official confirmation to deliver on the Government’s manifesto commitment.
New standards are set to be developed over the coming months to help standardise the design of new hospitals and make use of modular construction methods to speed up the build process.
Originally launched last September with a £2.8bn investment which provided six new hospitals with the funding to go ahead, alongside seed funding for trusts to work up business cases, the health infrastructure plan (HIP) represents the largest hospital building programme in the UK for a generation.
The trusts which received seed funding will now all be fully funded to deliver 25 new hospitals. An additional site – a new hospital in Shotley Bridge – has also been added to the programme.
The new Shotley Bridge hospital represents a commitment from the Government to ensure much of the funding also goes to rebuilding across the North of England, as part of its levelling up agenda.
As part of welcoming new schemes to bid for funding for the eight further new hospitals down the line, the Government also committed that a proportion of these would be new mental health hospitals.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson 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.”
Health and Social Care Secretary Matt Hancock said: “We protected the NHS through the peak of coronavirus. Today we recommit to protect the NHS for years to come with the 40 new hospitals we will build over the next decade.
“I love the NHS and I will do all I can to make sure it is there for you and your family over the years to come. The biggest hospital building programme in a generation will help protect the NHS long into the future.”
Details of the 40 new hospital sites, as announced by the Department of Health and Social Care, can be accessed below:
