The Prime Minister, David Cameron, has announced that over £330 million in extra funding will be made available for ‘state-of-the art’ equipment and buildings ‘to give more than two and a half million patients better care and services’.
Funding is to be allocated to projects including:
• New urgent care facilities at the Burnley General Hospital in East Lancashire, and Hillingdon Hospital in London, and an upgrade to the existing such facility at Carshalton’s St Helier Hospital. The North West London Hospitals NHS Trust will also develop a purpose-built A&E department, incorporating an urgent care centre next to operating theatres to promote integrated care, at Harrow’s Northwick Park Hospital, with facilities set to include acute inpatient assessment, specialist inpatient care theatres, and critical care.
• Scarborough General Hospital will build a new dedicated paediatric facility, which will look after around 5,000 paediatric inpatients and 4,500 paediatric outpatients annually.
• New CT scanners will be bought for hospitals in Dorset, East Sussex, and Newham; at Hastings’ Conquest Hospital, the new scanner will enable around 100 patients per week to be treated in-house.
• Birmingham Women’s Hospital will be able to deliver an additional 650 babies every year thanks to a maternity unit expansion scheme, which will include a purpose-built recovery area, new induction suite, HDU triage room and foetal medicine department, while, also in central England, £35 million will be allocated to a new women and children’s unit at Telford’s Princess Royal Hospital, benefiting 75,000 patients, and to the Royal Hospital Shrewsbury, which will become a main base for inpatient acute general surgery, and will also see opened a refurbished cancer and haematology centre this autumn.
• Better breast screening equipment will enable more women to be screened. NHS East London and City will receive £1.1 million, allowing an extra 10,000 women across Hackney and Newham to be invited in for screening.
• Community hospitals in Bridgewater, Tewkesbury, Purley, and Surbiton, will be re-vamped, benefiting over 200,000 patients.
While some of the medical equipment will be purchased immediately, other projects, such as the redevelopment of hospitals, will have longer lead-in times, and will commence in the next financial year.
David Cameron said: “This Government is investing in the NHS to ensure the very best care is available – that’s why I can announce over £330 million of new medical equipment, from CT scanners to cancer therapy and neo-natal care facilities. It will ensure millions of people see better buildings, better equipment, and brand new facilities and services, as well as saving thousands of lives.”
The Department of Health said that the £336.5 million in capital spending would be provided by reinvestment of funds saved ‘via tighter financial controls’ on planned IT systems delivery during the latest financial year.
