New Hospital Programme and Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust

Tuesday 13th June 2023 Westminster Hall

16:30

[Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the New Hospital Programme and Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust.

It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair this afternoon, Sir Mark. I understand that our proceedings may be interrupted for some time, but let us make a start. I am delighted to see my west London colleagues here—my hon. Friends the Members for Westminster North (Ms Buck), for Ealing Central and Acton (Dr Huq) and for Brentford and Isleworth (Ruth Cadbury)—and indeed the hon. Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Nickie Aiken), my hon. Friend the Member for Reading East (Matt Rodda), and, of course, the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon), without whom no debate would be complete, perhaps to remind us that although this is to some extent a local or regional issue, it has much wider implications.

To be clear, this debate is about one thing specifically: the defunding and removal from the 2030 new hospital programme of three major hospitals—Charing Cross, Hammersmith, and St Mary’s—all of which form part of the Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust. They are teaching hospitals, major emergency and trauma hospitals, research hospitals, academic hospitals, tertiary hospitals—hospitals with a huge national and international reputation—but they are also local hospitals for my constituents and those of many other Members.

In the Secretary of State’s statement on the new hospital programme on 25 May, seven of the schemes that had previously been in the 40 hospitals scheme were removed from that programme with respect to completion by 2030—we must be careful in our words here. I need to deconstruct what has happened since that time, because there has been some misleading presentation of the facts. In order to clarify this, I sent some rather key questions to the Minister in advance of this debate.

Essentially, looking at the statement that was made, the Secretary of State said, in respect of those seven schemes:

“The work will start on those schemes over the next two years, but they will be part of a rolling programme where not all work will be completed by 2030.”—[Official Report, 25 May 2023; Vol. 733, c. 479.]

That is the key change, as far as we are concerned, in relation to that statement.

The questions that still sadly remain unanswered are these: what works will be done at each of the three hospitals before 2030? How much will the budget be for that, and will it come out of the £20 billion new hospitals by 2030 programme? What is the total budget for the rebuild schemes at each of the three hospitals? Is this secured funding, and when will it be allocated? By what date or dates will the works for each hospital be completed?

I have put together what I think are the answers—I have done my sleuthing—but I really need to hear it from the Minister’s own mouth, this afternoon if possible, or in a follow up if he needs to use that. I might also add a sort of meta-question to that: when will I receive a response to the email that I and my hon. Friend the Member for Westminster North sent to the Secretary of State on 28 May, which raised those same issues?

I understand that there is confusion associated with the new hospital programme—as would be true of any scheme that came in under the aegis of the former Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip—about whether those were new hospitals or not. Almost a year ago, I asked the then Prime Minister about the new hospitals—the “new” hospital at Hammersmith that opened in 1902, and the “new” hospital at Charing Cross that opened in 1818—but I will not focus on that point today. This is about the funding and the timetabling of the scheme; frankly, the Minister can call them whatever he likes.

There have been a number of schemes moving in and out. At one stage there were going to be 48 new hospitals. I think 128 bids came in for the extra eight places and five were successful. We are told there is £20 billion, which sounds like a lot of money—it is a lot of money—but it is not the £32 billion to £35 billion that the Health Service Journal says would be needed to complete all the schemes that have at one time been put forward for the new hospital programme. Those are legitimate grievances, but I do not have time to deal with them all today. I have time only to deal with the one matter that I have already raised.

I need to give a little bit of background. As I have indicated, the hospitals have a long and illustrious history, going back more than two centuries in the case of Charing Cross. In 2012, an Orwellian programme called Shaping a Healthier Future, which had been the product of two years’ secret work by the consultants McKinsey, said that several A&Es should close, including the one at Hammersmith, and that Charing Cross should be demolished and replaced by primary care and treatment services on the site. It was the biggest closure programme in the history of the NHS.

Sadly, we did lose the A&E at Hammersmith in 2014, but after a herculean battle fought over seven years by community groups, such as Save Our Hospitals, and by Labour local authorities, particularly that in Hammersmith, that battle was won and Charing Cross had a reprieve and would go on being a major hospital. That happened in 2019.

It was rumoured that the money that would have been gained by selling most of the land at Charing Cross might have gone into the St Mary’s scheme, which, by common consent, is the hospital that most needs emergency work. But although the bill for essential repairs on the three hospitals is about £350 million—far and away the biggest repair bill of any hospitals in the country—if we want to make those hospitals fit for the 21st century, the actual cost, which I believe is accepted by Department of Health and Social Care officials, will be about 10 times that, between £3 billion and £4 billion. If that seems an unspecific figure—my hon. Friend the Member for Westminster North will say more about this—it is because it depends to some extent on what receipts can be received from land value and moneys at Charing Cross. It is a significant sum of money, but it is to make those essential and world-class hospitals fit for purpose for decades going forward, not just to patch them up.

It was always going to be difficult, and it was disappointing that the hospitals were in cohort 4 and would just squeak in by 2030—that is when the work would be completed. We would have a newly built hospital at St Mary’s and refurbished hospitals at Charing Cross and Hammersmith over that time. That is why it was so disappointing when they were moved out of that without any further future date being given.

What is at stake here? Because there has been so much information, I do not want to use my own words, but the words of the trust itself. In preparation for this debate today, it said:

“the main funding for our schemes has been pushed back beyond the original commitment of 2030 as other schemes have been added to the programme and prioritised. We had two schemes in the original list of 40 hospitals to be built by 2030: a complete rebuild of St Mary’s Hospital in Paddington; and extensive refurbishment and some new build at both Charing Cross Hospital and Hammersmith Hospital”—

confusingly, the Department of Health classifies the two hospitals of Hammersmith and Charing Cross as one scheme, but it certainly affects the two hospitals. The trust goes on:

“It is clearly very disappointing that we will not now be funded to complete these schemes before 2030.”

It also states that

“some funding to progress to final business case approval and to support enabling work”

should be provided, and

“we are awaiting a response in terms of a decision and a funding allocation.”

It then talks about the business plans that it is going to put forward. In rather more emotive but absolutely accurate language, it says:

“If we waited until 2030 to start building works at St Mary’s it would become impossible to patch up our oldest facilities, many of which house key clinical services. As the provider of London’s busiest major trauma centre and host of the NHS’s largest biomedical research centre, that would be hugely damaging for the health and healthcare of hundreds of thousands of people”.

That is the statement from the chief executive officer at Imperial, Professor Tim Orchard, and those words should resonate with the Minister.

[Dr Rupa Huq (Ealing Central and Acton) (Lab)]

I am aware that the Division bell will probably start ringing as soon as I stand up, but I am familiar with that quote from Tim Orchard. My hon. Friend is making a really powerful speech. I am familiar with all these hospitals, as are all my constituents. I was born at Queen Charlotte’s, my little sister was born at Hammersmith, and both my parents were under Charing Cross. I went to the Western Eye Hospital last year when I had shingles, and I have an auntie who has retired but was a consultant professor at St Mary’s.

Does my hon. Friend agree that it is really sad that, in the 75th year of the NHS, we are talking about crumbling estates and all these issues? The backlogs at these hospitals existed long before covid. The Government like to throw up that smokescreen and say, “It’s covid’s fault.” I have just written to Tim Orchard because a constituent told me that there is only one temporary scanner at Hammersmith at the moment. Is that not scandalous? Does my hon. Friend agree that, to paraphrase the Sex Pistols, who were formed on the Wormholt estate, which borders both our constituencies, this is the great NHS scandal?

[Andy Slaughter]

I thank my hon. Friend for that contribution, and I entirely endorse what she said.

I want to deal briefly with the misinformation—I accept that it was wholly unintentional—in the Secretary of State’s statement, or rather in his responses to questions following his statement, because it is important. A ministerial correction was made following a point of order that I made arising out of that. In response to my hon. Friend the Member for Westminster North, the Health Secretary said:

“We recognise the importance of the Imperial bid; that is why we are starting to build the temporary ward capacity at Charing Cross and the first phase of work is under way on the cardiac elective recovery hub, to bring cardiac work on to the Hammersmith site.”—[Official Report, 25 May 2023; Vol. 733, c. 485.]

There are 47 words in that statement, and four errors had to be corrected in the ministerial correction. That may be an all-time record; I do not know. Some are more important than others. There are bids, not one bid. We are not starting to build; we will start to build at some time in the unspecified future. There is no cardiac elective recovery hub; there is a cardiac catheter lab. The idea that we are just moving cardiac services to the Hammersmith Hospital site would be a surprise, given that St Mary’s is a world-leading cardiac hospital at the moment.

I accept that mistakes happen, but there were other errors in that statement. It implied that works are under way, whereas it is common consent now that they have not yet started. The cardiac work is nothing to do with the new hospital programme; it is part of the ordinary work, as is the refurbishment of wards. The temporary ward at Charing Cross will be necessary, but not until the main funding for the floor-by-floor hospital renewal refurbishment is ready to go. Some greater clarity would be helpful on those very contentious matters.

My first question is: what are the enabling works? What does that mean? We have heard several definitions. The trust says:

“We do not yet know when we will be able to start work.”

There has been mention of surveys. Of course there will have to be surveys before the works, which are estimated to cost several billion pounds, start. We are hoping to get a significant sum of money for the business case—perhaps as much as £200 million. This is about rebuilding the three main hospitals.

An energy centre is mentioned. There will need to be a new energy centre, partly because we have major supply issues in west London, and the existing energy supply would not supply modern, state-of-the-art hospitals. All that is true, but what is not true is that this is somehow the beginnings of the major works of the scheme. That is a fig leaf to cover the fact that the major works have been postponed beyond 2030. The fact is that they are not in the 2030 programme or the current spending review. I ask the Minister again: when will the work be done and what funds have been assigned? Yes, there has been preparatory enabling work, but does that come out of the £20 billion? What is the Government’s commitment to the major work of rebuilding those hospitals? There has been some work, with £20 million spent on preparing plans so far, but we are in limbo at the moment. We are suffering repeatedly from misinformation.

I understand that this is a highly contentious political area. The chairman of the Conservative party will, if the Boundary Commission proposals go through, be the MP who covers Charing Cross Hospital. That is no excuse for putting forward matters that are simply misleading to my constituents and many other people. That does us a great disservice. We all want to see these hospitals thrive, in the interests of patients, staff, management, the trust and the hospitals themselves.

Therefore, I will end my comments, because I want to give others an opportunity to contribute. What I need from the Minister today is clarity and honesty about what is happening. We will live with the consequences of that, and we will continue to campaign as we have done for our wonderful hospitals and local NHS. The Government do a disservice if they are not straightforward and clear in the message they send out.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Sir Mark Hendrick (in the Chair)]

Order. I remind Members to bob if they wish to be called in the debate. I now call Nickie Aiken.

16:46

[Nickie Aiken (Cities of London and Westminster) (Con)]

Thank you, Sir Mark, it is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship. I thank the hon. Member for Hammersmith (Andy Slaughter) for bringing forward the debate and for the points he has raised. As the Member of Parliament for the Cities of London and Westminster, I would like to focus my remarks specifically on St Mary’s Hospital in my constituency.

In September 2021, Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust set out the need for a complete redevelopment of St Mary’s: a new 840-bed, research-led major trauma and acute teaching hospital, which would release around five acres of surplus land for wider site regeneration. As I know the Minister appreciates, that development is of huge—

[Sir Mark Hendrick (in the Chair)]

Order. The sitting is to be suspended for multiple Divisions in the Chamber. We require approximately 15 minutes for each vote. There is an issue in that there may be more than four votes. I would imagine it could possibly be an hour before we come back. Those who have put in to speak should not worry, because there will be injury time.

16:48

Sitting suspended for Divisions in the House.

17:35

On resuming—

[Nickie Aiken]

Being the Member of Parliament for Cities of London and Westminster, I would like to focus my remarks specifically on St Mary’s Hospital, which is based in my constituency. Back in September 2021, Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust set out the need for a complete redevelopment of St Mary’s Hospital, a new 840-bed research-led major trauma and acute teaching hospital, which would release around five acres of surplus land for wider site regeneration.

I know the Minister appreciates that the development is of huge importance to the wider London area and not just my constituency. After all, St Mary’s is the major acute hospital for north-west London, providing care across a range of specialities in London, in addition to its world-leading maternity centre and 24/7 A&E department. It played a significant role in the 7/7 bombings and other major incidents over the years. It is host to the NHS’s largest biomedical research centre and through its partnership with Imperial College London, the trust continues its long legacy of translating academic discovery into better care and treatment, including making a major contribution to the management of covid-19.

I welcome the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care’s recent confirmation of Government funding for the redevelopment of St Mary’s. Though the timescales have been altered, I appreciate that the full picture is more complex and I know that work continues to complete the majority of the redevelopment as near to the original timescales as possible. I also appreciate the complexities of the programme’s schedule for building works, so I am glad to hear from discussions with Ministers that they are committed to getting the enabling works started as soon as possible. To that end, I look forward to visiting St Mary’s with the Minister responsible, Lord Markham, and the Under-Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, my hon. Friend the Member for Kensington (Felicity Buchan) to discuss the case for change and the redevelopment more widely.

I pay tribute to Lord Markham and to officials at the Department of Health and Social Care, as well as to the Minister and the Secretary of State, for their communication with the trust and me throughout the process. I am currently concerned about running key clinical services while we wait for building works to commence and specifically about services being patched up to keep patient care running. As it stands, key parts of the estate date back to 1845 and most of the facilities—even the most modern bits—are at least 70 years old. That is because St Mary’s has been developed piecemeal over the decades. I am sure anyone who has visited there will agree that, when walking through the site, it is clear that the hospital is a patchwork of buildings with complex patient pathways.

As a patient of St Mary’s, having recently gone there for one of my regular mammograms, I saw that parts of the hospital are very outdated and very much in need of redevelopment. That is a product of the hospital’s history. However, the space and configuration of the buildings are making it significantly harder to respond to increasing and changing healthcare demands and opportunities. Let us not forget that the hospital was first built in the 19th century, and is now dealing with 21st-century healthcare and medical advancements.

I have heard significant concerns about the fact that the acceleration of the estate decline is impacting patient care and experience and staff working conditions. In short, the St Mary’s buildings are in a poor and declining condition, despite investment in maintenance and repairs. Taken together, the size, age and condition of the buildings make it hard to deliver the high-quality care that people expect and deserve from such a major hospital.

From speaking to Professor Tim Orchard, the chief executive of Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust, I am confident that we will find a way to mitigate decline and enable work as soon as possible. I am assured that the trust is doing all it can to find innovative solutions to the ongoing problems. I hope the Minister can update us on the outcomes of the Department’s conversations with the trust, focusing on the progress of the enabling works.

I know the trust is accelerating its exploration of alternative funding, design and phasing approaches that will make the most of the huge potential of the land surrounding the hospital once we have a new hospital on a less sprawling footprint. That hugely expensive real estate can then be used for better redevelopment. The development of St Mary’s has the potential to do so much more for our local community and the whole of the UK science, technology, engineering and mathematics sector.

St Mary’s Hospital has been a leading provider of clinical care, education and research for 175 years. We now have an opportunity to take advantage of and invest in new technologies and other opportunities for it so that it better serves its communities and the wider health system.

17:41

[Ms Karen Buck (Westminster North) (Lab)]

I am grateful for the opportunity to contribute to this debate, and I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Hammersmith (Andy Slaughter) on securing it. It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Nickie Aiken). St Mary’s Hospital, which I will mainly concentrate my remarks on, is located in her constituency but is the main hospital serving my constituents in north Westminster.

There is a feeling that this is déjà vu all over again. In April 2019, my hon. Friend the Member for Hammersmith and I spoke in a very similarly titled debate on the Imperial hospitals programme. I said:

“In January 2018, Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust gained full planning permission for the first phase of the redevelopment of St. Mary’s”

as part of the overall redevelopment of the trust. I said that the

“failure to gain funding and approval from key stakeholders…is a key risk on the trust’s corporate risk register, because the conditions of St Mary’s Hospital have deteriorated so much…the structural issues in the hospital have become absolutely and imminently challenging.”—[Official Report, 24 April 2019; Vol. 658, c. 354WH.]

That case has intensified in the intervening years, as I will come to in a moment.

That was four years ago. A couple of weeks ago, we had the announcement that the main funding for the Imperial hospitals scheme has been pushed back beyond the start date of 2030. Other hospitals have been prioritised. Many of the 40 hospitals have received their commitment to proceed on the original timescale, but not St Mary’s or the Imperial hospitals. As the chief executive of the trust board said, that is very disappointing news.

The 40-hospital building programme was a key feature of the 2019 general election. Conservative candidates took advantage of the opportunity to pose outside St Mary’s Hospital and put the pictures on social media and in their campaign literature. One enthusiastically announced:

“We are helping rebuild St Mary’s hospital…Great to talk to Matt Hancock”

—the then Secretary of State for Health—

“about what it means for local residents”.

The Conservative Assembly Member for West Central, even more enthusiastically, talked about how she looked forward to talking to the BBC about the plans to completely refurbish Charing Cross and Hammersmith Hospitals and rebuild St Mary’s. Four years on, St Mary’s is still the hospital with the largest maintenance backlog in the country, and it has been left behind in the programme. That goes far beyond being yet another example of a broken promise.

There are two key issues. The first, which my hon. Friends and the hon. Member for Cities of London and Westminster have alluded to, is the centrality of the St Mary’s and Imperial trust life sciences campus as a leading centre for biomedical research. This is an incredibly exciting project that is part of this country’s scientific renewal—it could not be more important for the locality or the country—but to be honest, it is hard to sustain the necessary investment or the recruitment and retention of staff in a project of that kind in a crumbling hospital building.

But even more important is the central question of the condition of the hospital—all three of them, as my hon. Friend the Member for Hammersmith said, but particularly, from my point of view, St Mary’s—and its implications for patient care and public money. Put simply, this is about wasting money on routine maintenance and repairs to patch up a building that has for many years been recognised as being in need of a transformative rebuild; indeed, the plans have been proceeding on that basis.

I spoke four years ago about the litany of floods, fires and ceiling collapses that we have had to deal with in our hospital estate. However, some recent examples include the closure of the gynaecology day services unit due to the failure of the air handling unit, and the flooding of the Paterson surgical centre—both of which led to two weeks-worth of clinical activities being suspended—as well as flooding in the main out-patient building caused by a sewage blockage, a partial ceiling collapse in an in-patient ward, and sewage leaks into the bottom of the Queen Elizabeth building and into the pharmacy. These problems not only inconvenience patients and delay treatment; they demand ever more ad hoc spending, which is running at an estimated £6 million to £7 million every year, and there is a long list of repair work that needs to be done.

We know that the new hospital cannot be rebuilt overnight, but it is essential that the hospital redevelopment stays within the framework of the timescale that we have been working to over the last few years, since the programme of 40 hospitals became such a key element of the Government’s planning. St Mary’s and the Imperial NHS trust need Government support, and they need it fast.

I have two questions that I would like the Minister to answer today. Will any slippage in the hospital building programme, from other hospitals in the scheme, enable any assistance to be carried over to help Imperial and St Mary? Will the Government also commit to adopting an alternative funding approach to help that scheme—which is being led by a highly skilled, highly experienced team of clinicians and advisers—as a matter of urgency? A scheme is ready to move, but it needs Government support, and the people of Westminster need that hospital to be delivered fast.

17:48

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

It is a real pleasure to speak in this debate, and I congratulate the hon. Member for Hammersmith (Andy Slaughter) on securing it on this issue. He is indeed a hardy, dedicated and assiduous MP. I say that in all honesty, because I think the good people of Hammersmith have an excellent MP, and they should be very proud of the efforts he makes on behalf of his people in the Chamber and Westminster Hall.

This debate is about the new hospital programme, which applies to the UK mainland. I have come along to add my support to the hon. Gentleman, as I do for many right hon. and hon. Members, here and in the main Chamber. That is my purpose for being here. I am also here to discuss the new hospital programme, which was announced at the 2019 Conservative manifesto launch and would have delivered 40 new hospitals in the UK by 2030. I understand the reasons for the delays—the covid pandemic has focused attention elsewhere and taken away much of the funding—but there is a real need, and hon. Members have made that case today on behalf of their constituents.

I also understand the position of the hon. Member for Hammersmith on the refurbishment works at Charing Cross and Hammersmith Hospitals. As MPs, we want the best of care, access and opportunities for our constituents, and delays to any work are often frustrating, so I understand the request very well, and support his position and his ongoing commitment to his constituents.

I am pleased to see the Minister in his place. He responded to the first debate in Westminster Hall this morning on cancer very well. If he answers hon. Members in the same way in this debate as he did in that one, they will be more than satisfied. With the support of the new hospital programme, Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust is beginning the next phase of redevelopment planning work for its three main hospital sites, all of which are included in the 40 new hospitals that the Government have committed to building by 2030.

I will quickly give a Northern Ireland perspective: what is happening here is also happening back home. It is important that we all remember that the demands for hospital care and better hospitals are not just in London; they are across the whole of this great United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Northern Ireland has around 3% of all hospitals, with 40 across the Province.

In a constituency neighbouring mine, Belfast East, we have Ulster Hospital, which is the main hospital for us and is currently undergoing a £261 million revamp being done in stages. I believe that we are now going into section C of this refurbishment. So far there have been developments to a 30,000-square-metre in-patient block that is six storeys high, with a day surgery unit, an endoscopy unit, an angiography unit, and a cardiac investigation unit, with 12 in-patient wards. It is very much a modern hospital and very much of the modern programme that we have in Northern Ireland. The Minister is not responsible for that, but I just wanted to put it on record.

In order to clear our waiting lists, it is crucial that we do all we can to update outdated and old facilities. For a modern society and a fully functioning working hospital, things need to be modern and up to date. That is what the hon. Gentleman has asked for, and that is important. Hospital waiting lists in Northern Ireland are supposed to be banished by 2026—that is pie in the sky, in all honesty—according to a roadmap set out by the former health Minister, Robin Swann. More than 330,000 people are on some sort of waiting list in Northern Ireland and the new elective care framework proposes a £700 million investment over five years. It is important that the Government are committed to the requests of the hon. Member for Hammersmith and the hon. Member for Westminster North (Ms Buck), and to other requests that will follow.

[Sir Mark Hendrick (in the Chair)]

Order. Health is devolved in Northern Ireland, and the focus of this is very much on—

[Jim Shannon]

That is what I have done in my comments, Sir Mark. I just want to give you the example of Northern Ireland—

[Sir Mark Hendrick (in the Chair)]

But it is not a speech about the Northern Ireland health service, surely.

[Jim Shannon]

I have every hope that the Department of Health and Social Care will be able to give us timely updates on hospitals in England. This is a discussion I always have with those in the devolved Assemblies. We must—I conclude with this—do our best for our constituents and ensure that the collective facilities are in place to serve their needs. I hope the work in the constituency of the hon. Member for Hammersmith will commence soon as some reassurance for his constituents. He put his case forward—the Minister, I am sure, will respond—and I support him in what he has requested.

17:53

[Matt Rodda (Reading East) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Mark. I thank the hon. Member for Hammersmith (Andy Slaughter) for his work in securing this debate, and I thank Members from across the House for their contributions. I support the points my hon. Friend made. He set out clearly in his speech a great deal of local need and hope for a solution to be found in his area, as have other Members. I would like to add my support to them and to highlight a similar issue at the Royal Berkshire Hospital in Reading, which serves both Reading and a very large part of the Royal County of Berkshire.

I start by paying tribute to NHS staff in our county and across the country. They are extremely hard working. They have been through the pandemic and many other great difficulties in recent years and they deserve our respect and support. This rebuilding programme is part of that. It is investing in the future of the country and in the health of our population.

The Royal Berkshire Hospital is one of 40 hospitals that were originally identified by the Government for rebuilding but, sadly, when the announcement was made by the Department of Health and Social Care recently, it was not mentioned. The public and hon. Members present can only imagine the stress that puts staff under, as well as the patients who are waiting for a resolution to many serious building problems in our area. I hope that the Minister will address that point.

Sadly, as my hon. Friend mentioned earlier, the hospital now risks potentially missing out, because if the Government’s plans and assumptions are correct, the pot of money available could run out in 2030 and, as of yet, there is no date for work to start at the Royal Berkshire Hospital.

The issues at the hospital are quite clear and are very similar to the ones in London and across the country. The old part of the hospital, the North Block, is 173 years old. The site is a patchwork of buildings from different dates since then, the A&E department is not suitable, and there is a £200 million backlog of repairs—all very similar to the situation my hon. Friend described for west London, which is obviously nearby. There are many other issues, and all of this affects the productivity of the hospital, the experience of patients and, to some extent, the morale of staff. A number of staff, many of whom I know, have contacted me over some months and years to express concerns about this issue, so I hope that today the Minister will be able to clarify the position for the 40 hospitals in London, Reading and many other areas around the country. I hope he will be able to reassure both patients and staff, and give the country the certainty it needs.

17:56

[Ruth Cadbury (Brentford and Isleworth) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Sir Mark. I draw your attention to my revised entry in the Members’ Registry of Financial Interests: my spouse is chair of audit at the Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Hammersmith (Andy Slaughter) for securing this important debate on the hammer blow that has been inflicted on west London—just one part of the funding and investment crisis being inflicted on the NHS by the Government.

Many of my constituents rely on services from the Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust, and particularly the St Mary’s, Hammersmith and Charing Cross Hospitals. For constituents in the eastern third of my constituency, Charing Cross Hospital is their local general hospital, whereas for those across my constituency, some or all treatments could be at Charing Cross, Hammersmith or St Mary’s.

My hon. Friend powerfully laid out the case against the Government and the complete neglect they have shown over the past 10 years to those across west London who need NHS care and those who work in the NHS. The sad thing is that I am not even surprised, because this is what we have come to expect from a Conservative Government—things such as the promises made by the now former Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip. He said there would be 40 new hospitals—that is a promise he drove into the ditch.

I expect that the Minister will make a valiant effort to shake the Etch A Sketch and pretend that the last four years did not actually happen, but patients and staff cannot pretend. Every delayed or inadequate repair or rebuild of any NHS buildings impacts on staff and patients. Leaking roofs, failing electrics, flooding sewage systems and structural faults put whole wards out of action. Operations have been cancelled, diagnostic units and pharmacies have suddenly closed, and much more. This all leads to delayed diagnostics, delayed treatment and delayed discharge.

The NHS backlog currently stands at over 7.3 million, and over 48,000 people in my constituency and the borough of Hounslow were waiting for treatment last year, including 50 who had been waiting over a year for an operation. Behind every single one of those cold numbers is a person whose life is put on hold or, worse, put at risk because of the delays to well-overdue investment. Examples of delay include people who are forced to go private, stroke victims waiting months for a physio, and a young man waiting over a year for an assessment for a broken hip. Behind every one of those stories is not just frustration, but a deeper anger—a righteous anger about just how bad the state of things is. How many of the delays that people are experiencing are made worse because of the failure to invest in the core infrastructure of NHS buildings? We should be clear that it is not the fault of NHS staff and boards. The Imperial trust has needed work to happen for years, and has been preparing and getting plans ready in the expectation that the Government’s promised support will arrive.

I will touch on another aspect that is not necessarily specific to the Imperial trust, but it has been raised with me recently and it is an example of the impact of cutting back on NHS capital investment. There has been a failure to invest in technology, equipment and buildings in testing labs. Without that investment, the NHS is becoming increasingly dependent on the private sector. Businesses are using their leverage position to demand unnecessarily high unit costs per diagnostic test from the already overstretched NHS revenue budgets. Of course, as my hon. Friend the Member for Westminster North (Ms Buck) has described, the annual additional maintenance cost is coming out of revenue budgets because of the lack of capital expenditure.

The failure to invest has left NHS staff, patients and their families down. I know from recently visiting West Middlesex University Hospital is Isleworth in my constituency how hard NHS staff are working, and the groundbreaking work they are doing, but staff say they get little to no support from Government. West Middlesex is not in the same position as the three hospitals mentioned in this debate; it had a complete rebuild on the core part of the hospital under the last Labour Government.

NHS staff and patients are fed up, and they feel ignored. Surely the failure to invest in our NHS estate and provide what was promised will be yet another kick in the teeth for them. The broken promises will have a huge impact on not just my constituents but all Londoners. As has been said, St Mary’s Hospital provides key clinical services and is one of London’s major trauma centres—I think there are only four across London.

[Sir Mark Hendrick (in the Chair)]

Order. Ruth, could you wind up?

[Ruth Cadbury]

In conclusion, my constituents, who already face record waiting lists, will face a longer wait and greater difficulty because of the Government’s decision to pause investment. The Government over-promise and under-deliver. The whole farce shows why, after 13 years in power, it is time for a change.

18:02

[Karin Smyth (Bristol South) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Mark. It is good to see the Minister; the day after we were last opposite one another, he decided he would not continue after the next general election. I hope we have a good exchange today, and I wish him well.

I am pleased to be in the debate. I declare an interest in that I was born in the Chiswick branch of the old Hammersmith Hospital. The groundworks at Ealing were dug by my father and thousands of Irish labourers from across west London, and I used to visit that hospital as a child. My brother was born in Hillingdon. These places matter to local people.

We are here to discuss something called the new hospital programme, but what we quickly learned was that it was not new, they were not hospitals and there certainly were not 40 of them. It is an absolutely sorry saga, and as we have heard it is a hammer blow for people in west London. It is also a saga that is recognised across the country. Members should not just take my word for it; according to the National Audit Office, the NHS estate does not meet the demands of a modern health service. The growth in backlog maintenance risks harm to patients, and the need for capital is being consistently underestimated. Billions of pounds in capital have been diverted to cover inadequate revenue funding, and yet some capital cannot be used for technical reasons, so there are underspends. Assets are sold to fund day-to-day activities.

In July 2020, the Public Accounts Committee recommended a capital strategy and guidance, including expectations on how backlog maintenance costs will be addressed alongside other priorities. In October 2021, the NHS Confederation stated that NHS leaders had concerns about safety standards because they cannot sufficiently maintain their estate, enable positive digital innovations and reduce the elective backlog without further worsening health inequalities. It described a disjointed and opaque allocation system and unresolved issues about how integrated care systems will allocate and prioritise capital spend.

There is more. In September 2022, the King’s Fund reported that levels of capital investment had changed dramatically over the past 15 years—and don’t we know it! The transfer of NHS funds from capital budgets to support day-to-day spending and relieve the pressures in the NHS has come at a huge cost. NHS buildings and equipment have fallen into increasing disrepair and patients have experienced safety incidents.

The Government’s own review, chaired by Patricia Hewitt, recommended that there should be a cross-Government review of the entire NHS capital regime, with a view to implementing recommendations from 2024. Section 5.43 of the report makes suggestions that a review should consider. My first question to the Minister is, will the Government conduct a review in the light of the Hewitt recommendations? The Opposition would like that update.

NHS estates and capital are a subject that has always interested me in my time as a Member of Parliament. My first involvement as an NHS administrator working on NHS estates was in the late 1980s, when I was a junior planner in Enfield working on the final stages of Chase Farm Hospital, liaising with architects and clinicians and producing updates for the planning director. Later, in the noughties, I was part of the Bristol health service plan to reconfigure acute services and develop the primary and community estate as a non-executive. Yet, my real interest in capital, and part of my motivation in becoming an MP, was the disaster of the Tories’ Health and Social Care Act 2012. Nowhere is the destruction caused by that legislation more apparent than in the management of estates and capital planning, which was not even an afterthought. We cannot provide quality healthcare in leaky, dangerous and collapsing buildings.

Local taxpayers deserve to know how their money is being spent, and another key point made by Patricia Hewitt was about accountability. The MPs here today can get no clarity from their local NHS, and that is frankly outrageous. They have come here today from west London, and from across parties, to try to get some answers as to why the promises made to them have been reneged on. They also want some clarity and, as my hon. Friend the Member for Reading East (Matt Rodda) said, some certainty about the capital programme. It is entirely opaque why some schemes go ahead while others languish somewhere in a possible queue—I am not even sure there is a queue. Indeed, my second question is, can we see that queue? Can we understand the criteria for assessing what is in and what is out, and the timings?

There have been questions about enabling works. We need much more detail on what is in the system now, the original bids and the assessment of the capability to deliver. Who is designing? Who is project-managing? Who is freeing up the clinical time and paying for it to lead and advise on what is needed? Who is tackling safety and the sustainability of these future public buildings so they can meet the challenge of climate change? Because of the damage of the last decade, such skills are in short supply across the public and private sectors.

In case the Minister is not across this and does not have the detail from his civil servants, I will end with a little advice. From my 30 years in and around NHS capital schemes, I know they are complex and require a huge range of knowledge and skill throughout a long process that sometimes lasts for decades. We cannot land modular buildings in major towns and cities, with buildings surrounding them that are hundreds of years old. These are complex facilities that need to augment local services; they are not Amazon warehouses. Decanting clinical facilities and patients is not a matter of unplugging a few computers and moving desks into a portakabin.

Crucially, as the people of Hammersmith and Paddington, Hillingdon, and Uxbridge and South Ruislip certainly know, this is a Government of vague but still broken promises. They could not run a bath; they could not deliver a pizza. They are totally incapable of running this hospital programme. I hope the NHS is not waiting for them to deliver a 75th birthday card, because it will never arrive. They need to go.

18:07

[The Minister for Health and Secondary Care (Will Quince)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Mark. How do I follow that speech by the hon. Member for Bristol South (Karin Smyth)? Well, first, I would like to congratulate the hon. Member for Hammersmith (Andy Slaughter) for bringing forward the debate. I also thank my hon. Friend the Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Nickie Aiken) and the hon. Members for Westminster North (Ms Buck), for Strangford (Jim Shannon), for Reading East (Matt Rodda) and for Brentford and Isleworth (Ruth Cadbury). Time is short, but I will try to answer as many points as possible.

The new hospital programme is the biggest hospital building programme in a generation, which will help us deliver on our manifesto commitment to build 40 new hospitals by 2030. The hon. Member for Hammersmith raised a number of specific questions. I am not responsible for the new hospital programme, because that matter sits with Lord Markham. Nevertheless, I will endeavour to answer as many of the hon. Gentleman’s questions as possible. Furthermore, I know that Lord Markham would be pleased to meet him and colleagues, and I will ensure the hon. Gentleman gets a response to his letter.

On 25 May, we announced that the Government remain committed to building 40 new hospitals by 2030, and the new hospital programme is expected to be backed by more than £20 billion in funding for hospital infrastructure. It is the biggest hospital building programme in a generation. Going forward, new schemes will be considered through a rolling programme of capital investment in hospital infrastructure.

[Matt Rodda]

Will the Minister give way?

[Will Quince]

Time is very short, and I ask that the hon. Gentleman to let me answer as many of the questions as I can. If there is time, I will give way.

The programme is part of a more sustainable and consistent approach to delivering state-of-the-art new hospitals and will mean further investment to upgrade NHS facilities across the country. Our announcement is hugely significant to all hospitals in the programme and it gives funding certainty for trusts to progress their schemes in line with revised indicative allocations, most of which are a significant uplift on previous allocations.

I now turn to the specific questions. The hon. Member for Hammersmith said that the debate is about the defunding of the trust. I want to be clear that the trust has been informed of a significantly larger indicative allocation for both schemes than was previously given in 2019. Far from being defunded, the funding envelope has increased significantly.

Furthermore, no schemes have been removed from the programme, as the hon. Gentleman suggested. It is one programme, with a small number of schemes that will now complete beyond 2030. If I might correct the hon. Gentleman, he said that the pot is £20 billion; to be clear, it is over £20 billion.

On Charing Cross, I believe that the hon. Gentleman said that the temporary ward or decant facility will not be necessary until the main construction starts on the tower. That is part of the enabling works that have been raised, which can and should be completed well in advance of the main construction, and therefore can be used as extra capacity should there be a gap between the works. It is the first phase of that floor-by-floor work.

I understand that the main construction itself has not been postponed to start after 2030. We have been clear that, as part of the rolling programme, we may move schemes forward and backward—that question was raised by the hon. Member for Westminster North—based on their readiness to progress. The reason the two Imperial schemes were already in cohort 4 and are now in the rolling programme is that their plans are at such an early stage of development. If they are ready to progress sooner—or indeed other schemes, as the hon. Lady suggested, encounter problems along the way—some schemes may move forward and others may move back. Having the enabling works and business case ready is vital, and I know that hon. Members will have those conversations with the trust.

I will answer some of the other questions in a moment, but specifically on funding, I can confirm that Imperial and all other trusts will now have received confirmation of the individual indicative funding envelopes that give them the basis on which they can submit their proposals through the business case stages. Those individual scheme figures will not be released into the public domain, because they are commercially sensitive. I know that the hon. Member for Hammersmith would like to know the figures, but I hope he will understand why we will not release them: it could prejudice the future ability of contractors for tenders.

We announced that the programme is expected to be backed by over £20 billion, which gives trusts the funding certainty to deliver. We remain committed to delivering all the hospitals in the programme as soon as possible. Specifically on Imperial College, we are working closely with the trust on its two new hospital schemes within the programme. As the hon. Gentleman rightly said, that includes the rebuild of Hammersmith Hospital, the refurbishment of Charing Cross and the redevelopment of St Mary’s in Paddington, as well as any opportunities to commence supportive work ahead of the main construction starting.

Briefly taking each hospital in turn, Charing Cross is a large district general hospital with specialised services. It is a primary undergraduate training centre, and work is under way to explore practical options for a mix of new builds and refurbishment that will be phased across the site. We recognise that the 14-floor tower will need to be refurbished rather than rebuilt, as I mentioned. Other preparatory work that will be necessary, which the hon. Gentleman asked about, includes site-wide surveys and a new energy centre. As with all schemes in the programme, the funding is available for early enabling works such as those as soon as the trusts have their plans ready.

Hammersmith Hospital is a specialist hospital, as the hon. Gentleman said, whose specialisms include renal, haematology, cancer and cardiology care and, of course, its specialist heart attack centre and its research function. Plans for that scheme are also at an early stage of development and will require a phased approach due to space constraints.

Finally, St Mary’s is a large general district hospital, as my hon. Friend the Member for Cities of London and Westminster rightly pointed out, providing highly specialised services. The hospital will require a complete rebuild, and there are a range of options for a new site. We have been clear that we are establishing a new, centrally led programme to deliver those hospitals, which includes a new approach that enables standardisation.

The hon. Member for Hammersmith asked about the completion date for each hospital. The timelines are at an early stage. As a result, they are fluid, but I know that Lord Markham, the Minister in the Lords, will keep him updated on progress as work is undertaken with the trust to develop its proposals.

With a minute to go, I thank the hon. Gentleman for rightly raising this important issue and for his interest and engagement in the new hospital programme. I absolutely assure him that we are committed to the delivery of the two schemes at Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust, and I thank all Members who have taken part in the debate.

18:14

[Andy Slaughter]

I thank everybody who has contributed to the debate, and the Front Benchers for their contributions. I have a huge amount of respect for the Minister and genuinely wish him great success in his future career, wherever that may be, but he will not be surprised to hear that my constituents will not hear “early stage” and “fluidity” as comforting words. They had schemes for the completion of these major rebuilds of their hospitals by 2030 and assured funding. That is what we do not have, and however we dress it up, we are waiting in hospitals that are not fit for purpose. It is an insult not just to my constituents and patients but to the incredibly dedicated staff. Some of the best clinical staff in the world work in those hospitals, in frankly terrible conditions. That is why we need concrete answers. I will take up the offer of meeting the Lords Minister, but today’s Minister will not be surprised to hear that my hon. Friends and I will pursue this day by day and line by line until we have those assurances.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered the New Hospital Programme and Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust.

18:09

Sitting adjourned.