Facing up to a lost decade: Nuffield Trust statement on new hospitals announcement

Commenting on the Secretary of State’s announcement on hospital buildings, Nigel Edwards, Chief Executive of the Nuffield Trust said:

“This is a welcome recommitment to the ailing new hospitals programme, which seems to have been proceeding extremely slowly. It should help NHS Trusts get to work on replacing dilapidated buildings, including tackling unsafe temporary roofs, and to provide better and more modern facilities for patients.

“However, it is unclear if the funding sums mentioned today represent new money added to the NHS capital budget. If there is no more money to go around, we shouldn’t make the mistake of raiding funds that are also urgently needed for upgrading inadequate NHS IT or addressing the backlog of maintenance which hasn’t been done. They are also below previous estimates [3], with limited clarity on how they were calculated.

“We must not forget that this comes after a lost decade of investment in hospital buildings in England. If these sums had been invested a decade ago there is no doubt that the NHS would be in a far better position than it is now. We lag our European neighbours when it comes to the numbers of scanners and other pieces of diagnostic equipment.

“Letting hospital buildings languish for this long has meant that the high priority critical list for repairs has ballooned. And instead of being able to make informed choices about where to invest taxpayers’ money in the best care for the future, we’re in a position of needing to spend money on whichever hospital is most dangerous or most likely to fall apart. This was entirely predictable.”