From UKGov/ Department of Health and Social Care
The Prime Minister confirms that 40 hospitals will be built by 2030 as part of a package worth £3.7 billion.
- Funding confirmed for 40 hospitals, with a further 8 schemes invited to bid for future funding to deliver 48 hospitals by 2030
- New standards being developed to help revolutionise design and speed-up construction
- Multi-year capital funding settlement for the health infrastructure plan
The Prime Minister today confirmed for the first time that 40 hospitals will be built by 2030 as part of a package worth £3.7 billion, with 8 further new schemes invited to bid, delivering on the government’s manifesto commitment.
New standards will 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.
The health infrastructure plan (HIP) is the biggest hospital building programme in a generation. It launched last September with a £2.8 billion investment that gave 6 new hospitals the funding to go ahead, alongside seed funding for trusts to work up business cases.
The trusts that received seed funding will now all be fully funded to deliver 25 new hospitals. A new hospital in Shotley Bridge is also being added to the programme.
One of the options for this includes building on a former steel works site in Consett, Durham. The new hospital is a further signal of the government’s commitment to rebuilding across the north of England, as it drives forward with the levelling up agenda. Other new schemes will be invited to bid for funding for 8 more new hospitals – a proportion of these will be mental health hospitals.
The long-term investment in these new hospitals will ensure the NHS can continue to provide world-class care right across the country in the years to come.
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.
Alongside this, as announced last year, 20 hospitals will receive a share of £850 million to upgrade outdated facilities and equipment, with enabling works already beginning at several sites.
Over the summer the Prime Minister announced £1.5 billion in capital funding for the NHS, including £450 million for 142 A&E upgrades ahead of winter to improve infection control and increase capacity.
This investment will be on top of the record extra £33.9 billion a year by 2023 to 2024 that the government is providing to the NHS, and passed into law this year.
Alongside work to deliver the government’s manifesto commitment on 40 new hospitals, progress is also being made on delivering 50,000 more nurses, with over 14,100 more working in the NHS compared to last year, as well as over 9,200 more doctors.