The prevailing aura of chronic, shambolic failure hangs over the government’s much-vaunted “New Hospitals Programme,” a brainchild of Boris Johnson, whose 2019 manifesto seeking to convince the electorate promised 40 new hospitals plus 20 ‘hospital upgrades’.
Ministers even claimed in 2019 that six new “large hospital builds” had received funding to “go ahead at once,” but that soon changed. In the autumn of 2020 two additional major projects (rebuilding Hillingdon Hospital and North Manchester General) were added into a new list of eight “pathfinder” projects (now Cohort 3), but without increasing the allocation of just £3.7 billion capital.
At no point has the government ever explained the criteria on which they have selected some schemes, de-prioritised others, and subsequently shuffled them around, leaving Labour committed to starting over again with a complete reappraisal of projects. (It seems unlikely this will delay progress much more than it has been delayed already.)
Every delay has meant that initial projections of costs have been outdated while the initial allocation of capital for upgrades and new buildings has remained unchanged, and increasingly inadequate.
By July 2021 Natalie Forrest, leader of the New Hospitals Programme (NHP), admitted to a conference that the ‘brakes had come on’ for some of the pathfinder projects, most notably Princess Alexandra (Harlow in Essex), while some were having to change designs due to new requirements. There were also concerns over the capacity of the construction industry to complete so many projects by 2030.
Full story in The Lowdown, 18 January 2024