Mixed response to plans for new hospitals in West

ELEVEN of 40 new hospitals to be built across Britain by 2030 will be in the South West as part of a national package of NHS investment worth £3.7 billion.

Under the plans Somerset will get a new cancer hospital at the Royal United Hospital in Bath and a rebuild of Musgrove Park Hospital in Taunton.

In Dorset a new community hospital, emergency department and intensive care unit will be created at Dorset County Hospital in Dorchester while new community hospital hubs will be opening in Bournemouth and Christchurch. The Poole Community Hospital will be rebuilt and a new mental health centre opened at St Ann’s Hospital in Poole.

Devon will see a new integrated emergency care hospital at Derriford in Plymouth, an acute ‘hot’ hospital and a new elective centre at Torbay Hospital in Torquay and a rebuild of North Devon District Hospital in Barnstaple.

Cornwall will benefit from a new women’s and children’s hospital in the centre of the Royal Cornwall Hospital site at Treliske.

But the plan came under immediate fire from the NHS providers organisation, the Royal College of Nursing and the Labour Party.

Dame Donna Kinnair, chief executive and general secretary of the Royal College of Nursing, said: “Whether hospitals are rebuilt or wholly new, they will struggle to provide safe patient care without enough nurses.

“Unfair salaries are pushing nursing staff out of jobs they love when England’s NHS is already missing tens of thousands.”

And NHS Providers deputy chief executive Saffron Cordery – whose organisation represents health trust and other health care providers across the country, welcomed the announcement, but said there was an “absence of any meaningful investment in our crumbling mental health estate”.

And shadow mental health minister Rosena Allin-Khan said the announcement, made by Boris Johnson on Friday, was efectively old news. “This rehash of an old announcement is a missed opportunity and extremely disappointing,” she said. “And it is an insult that mental health – which represents one quarter of all health need – has again lost out.”

Conservatives in the South West, however, said the annoucement marked a turning point for the development of the region’s health care.

Launched in September 2019 with a £2.8 billion investment, the Health Infrastructure Plan (HIP) is the biggest hospital-building programme in a generation. Details of the precise funding allocated to each project will be revealed at the next Spending Review.

Boris Johnson said: “The dedication and tireless efforts of our nurses, doctors and all healthcare workers have kept the NHS open throughout this pandemic.

“But no matter what this virus throws at us, we are determined to build back better and deliver the biggest hospital-building programme in a generation.”

And health secretary Matt Hancock said the programme of upgrades and new builds would secure NHS care in Britain through and beyond the coronavirus pandemic.

“Today we recommit to protect the NHS for years to come with the 40 new hospitals we will build over the next decade. I love the NHS and I will do all I can to make sure it is there for you and your family over the years to come.”

‘Whether hospital are rebuilt or wholly new they can’t provide safe care without nurses’ DAME DONNA KINNAIR