£40m health campus ‘is being considered’
AMINISTER has said the Government could approve a bid for £40m to build a health campus at the Halton Hospital site in Runcorn ‘shortly’.
Stephen Barclay MP told Halton MP Derek Twigg the scheme was being considered for the next phase of funding announcements.
The health and social care minister’s answer was in reply to a question from Labour MP Mr Twigg, who had written to Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt to ask when he intended to make a decision on allocating funding for the proposed £40m health campus.
Under the plans, Halton Hospital would be demolished and services transferred to an expanded Cheshire And Merseyside Treatment Centre, while leftover land would be sold off for the construction of social and key worker housing plus care homes for the elderly.
The proposed campus would also have multiple general practi- tioners on site in a ‘medical plaza’, a ‘wellness facility’, an imaging and diagnostics centre, conference facilities and a neighbourhood centre with cafes, shops and post office.
Warrington And Halton Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust has said Halton Hospital is an ‘aged’ building.
Mr Barclay said: “The spring and autumn Budgets last year announced that over £2.9bn of additional capital funding will be made available to support NHS sustainability and transformation partnerships in delivering improvements in their infrastructure to support transformation of services, support their ability to better meet demand for local services and drive efficiency improvements.
“Provisional funding for the first 37 successful schemes was announced in July and November 2017 and the Government expects to shortly be able to announce the next set of successful schemes from these which have applied for funding.
“The Halton health and wellbeing campus is one of the schemes being considered.” ●