PM’s funding announcement only a fraction of what is needed to really upgrade 20 hospitals

Responding to reports of a £1.8 billion cash boost for the NHS, Nigel Edwards, Chief Executive of the Nuffield Trust, said:

“This is a welcome down payment on the staggering £6 billion needed to clear the backlog of NHS maintainence but it will only be a fraction of what it would cost to really upgrade 20 hospitals. Nobody should expect shiny new hospitals in their towns any time soon.

“It’s encouraging to see money assigned to capital funding, which will help stop hospitals deteriorating even further, but without comprehensively tackling the current workforce crisis, any new beds will be languishing on ghost wards.”

• Read Sally Gainsbury's quickfire Twitter analysis of the £1.8 billion here.
• And read Sally's discussion of the key issues in this debate in her Guardian piece from Monday 5 August here.