£760 million for modernised buildings

The Department of Health and Social Care has announced that 40 NHS hospitals and community services will get £760 million to modernise and transform their buildings.

Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt said that the funding is the biggest investment of its kind in the NHS in over 10 years, with £300 million of the funding being awarded to the Shropshire, Telford and Wrekin sustainability and transformation partnership (STP) to develop an emergency care site and a separate planned care site, with 24-hour urgent care centres at both sites.

The remaining funding will support 39 smaller projects, including £6 million to upgrade services of eight trusts across Yorkshire, £8 million for a new health and wellbeing centre to join up local NHS services in Kent, £13 million for two new urgent care centres in Newton Abbot and Torquay, and refurbishment of Torbay Hospital’s A&E department, as well as several million pounds for local NHS services in London, including one project worth up to £11 million.

A further £150 million is being spent to support the NHS’s work to become more efficient. This additional money will be used to: improve the use of a digital programme that helps the NHS use its workforce better, enable more efficient use of energy in hospitals, which could save the NHS £12 million a year in the first three years and improve pharmacy IT and administration systems to reduce medication errors and improve patient safety.

Hunt said: “As the NHS approaches its 70th birthday, we are backing it with one of the largest capital programmes in NHS history. As well as a whole new emergency care development in Shropshire, we are backing local NHS services with new buildings, beds and wards so that staff who have been working incredibly hard over winter can have confidence we are expanding capacity for the future.

“Further major projects are also under consideration across the country and we intend to announce one large scale scheme the size of the Shrewsbury and Telford plan every year going forward based on high-quality plans coming forward from local NHS leaders.”