Ed Davey used his question to the Prime Minister today to highlight hold-ups in the building of the mythical 40 new hospitals promised in the Government’s 2019 manifesto. Especially as the National Audit Office thinks it won’t meet that commitment.
Ed said:
Three years ago, the Government made a commitment to 40 new hospitals and significant upgrades to hospitals in most need, but today many schemes are badly delayed. The Royal Berkshire—stuck at the development stage, with not a single pound transferred for construction. Harrogate District Hospital—still waiting on £20 million for urgent upgrades after reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete was discovered. There are 25 more such schemes. Will the Prime Minister explain why his Government are happy to let patients, doctors and nurses suffer for years in such unfit and unsafe conditions?
Sunak responded:
We are delivering 40 hospitals by 2030. Good progress is already being made, and that programme is being backed by over £20 billion of investment. Three schemes are already open, two are opening this year, and 16 are in construction, or work has begun to prepare the site. It is absolutely right, though, that within that we prioritise RAAC hospitals. That required a reprioritisation, but that was the appropriate thing to do to ensure safety. Patients and staff are already benefiting from some of the improvements that we have made, which come on top of the largest capital programme for the NHS in its history, rolling out community diagnostic centres, urgent treatment centres and surgical hubs right across the country.
Afterwards, Ed said:
Local communities are in desperate need of new health facilities, with their old ones literally crumbling around them. But Rishi Sunak is burying his head in the sand and pretending everything is fine. He is totally out of touch.
The Prime Minister dropped the NHS from his latest five pledges, and the Chancellor didn’t even mention hospitals once in his Autumn Statement. How can they be trusted to deliver these 40 hospitals when they clearly don’t care? Their pledge lies in tatters.
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3 Comments
Even more significant is the requirement to obtain sufficient staff in both the NHS and Social Care to deliver the care that is needed ……. yet the Tory Party (and their current Leader) persist in playing the immigration card.
Well done Ed for highlighting this myth put about the Conservatives and their new hospitals. They promised 40 brand new hospitals and will deliver a few.
Rishi said they will deliver by 2030, not a chance of delivering the new Royal Berkshire by then.
Currently no money allocated, no site agreed, no planning permission sought. No idea where the extra doctors, nurses and healthcare professionals will come from to staff the new hospital.
Also the hospital building budget slashed in the recent Autumn statement.
It won’t happen, another con trick from the best con artists around.
Regarding 40 new hospitals, it’s an example of what I don’t like in politics. The average person on the street hears that sentence and has a very different idea to what the Tory government meant, which was pointed out by opposition at the time, but now the target isn’t being met the opposition are using the same misleading term.
A politicians job when communicating should be to ensure the public know more about what’s going on and the thinking of a political viewpoint regarding this rather than to mislead in order to gain votes.
Doing the opposite leads to major events like Brexit.