Almost half of the 40 hospitals promised by the previous Conservative government have been delayed, the Health Secretary has said.
Speaking in the House of Commons, Wes Streeting He said 18 of the projects will now be completed between 2030 and 2039, instead of the original deadline of 2030.
Streeting launched a scathing attack on the Conservative Party for making a promise to build the facility without a clear funding plan.
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He said the new plans would “give patients an honest, realistic, delivery schedule they can believe in.”
Streeting added: “This Labor government is rebuilding our NHS and in doing so we will also rebuild trust in politics.”
He stated that funding for the 40 projects would run out in March this year.
The promise to build 40 new hospitals by 2030 was originally made by Boris Johnson in the 2019 election campaign.
hay long time questions about him feasibility of the projects – also for cost reasons, the suitability of plans for new hospitals and whether each project actually included a new hospital or rather an improvement of previous facilities.
Some £20bn in funding promised by the last government was “never delivered”, according to a government announcement today.
The new timetable will be backed by £15bn in consecutive five-year waves, which the government says is equivalent to £3bn a year.
Speaking in the House of Commons, Streeting said hospitals that already have full business cases or are already under construction will continue with their current schedule.
He then set a new schedule for the rest of the plan.
The first phase, which includes hospitals built primarily from reinforced autoclaved cellular concrete (RAAC), will be completed by 2030.
A second wave of nine projects will be completed between 2030 and 2035, and a third wave of nine more projects will be built between 2035 and 2039.
Details of which hospital is in which wave can be found on government website.
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Streeting said: “The New Hospitals Program we inherited was unfunded and undeliverable. Not a single new hospital was built in the last five years, and there was no credible financing plan to build forty in the next five years.
“When I joined the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC), they told me that funding for the New Hospital Program runs out in March. We were determined to put the program on a firm footing, so we can build the new hospitals our NHS needs.
“Today we are setting out an honest, funded and actionable program to rebuild our NHS.”
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Morag Stuart, director of the New Hospitals Programme, said: “This announcement from the Department of Health and Social Care provides certainty about the next steps of the New Hospitals Programme.
“We will continue to work with local NHS organizations to deliver improvements to hospitals across England, including making better use of new technology and improving layout, and ensuring future hospitals are designed to meet the needs of patients and the “private.”
