London hospitals are set to get a multi-million pound funding boost from the government. They will each get their share of £750 million pound in capital funding which has been allocated to hospitals across the UK.
Chancellor Rachel Reeves announced that certain hospitals would get a set amount of money to help with infrastructure and safety risks as part of the 2024 Autumn Budget. The Estate Safety Funding will invest in relatively small-scale but important building safety works including fixes to leaking roofs, upgrades to faulty electrical wiring, fire safety requirements and more.
Funding will be used in a range of different healthcare facilities, including maternity and mental health. Plenty of London hospitals have been successful in securing a share in the funding.
Barts Health NHS Trust has bagged the largest sum of all London recipients, being awarded over £27 million. Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust was also awarded more than a whopping £25 million.
Smaller amounts for lower key projects have also been awarded, such as a £924k fund for University College London Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust for a lift upgrade.
Imperial College Hospitals NHS Trust say they will be using the money as part of a £115 million pound investment after the New Hospital Programme funding was delayed earlier this year. Hospitals such as St Mary’s and Charing Cross and Hammersmith Hospitals are in “growing need” of short-term investment to reduce major estate failures which could affect safety and efficiency, say the Trust.
The New Hospital Programme was announced in October 2020 to deliver 40 new hospitals by 2030, although this also included refurbishments and extensions in some cases.
In January of this year, it was announced that the project would take a decade longer than promised by the Conservative Party. Wes Streeting said the Tories’ promise to build the new hospitals by 2030 “was built on the shaky foundation of false hope” but promised to “to provide a realistic and affordable timetable for delivery.”
The new timetable will see the hospitals built in four waves of construction, with the latest group beginning work between 2035 and 2039. Mr Streeting said that the plan was backed up with investment which would increase to £15 billion over each consecutive five-year wave, averaging around £3 billion a year from 2023.
Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust had been expecting to see its new St Mary’s Hospital delivered under the programme before 2030.
Work on the new unit will now not begin until 2035 at the earliest, with trust chief executive Tim Orchard calling the delay “devastating news”.
Full list of London hospitals to get funding
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