Kettering General Hospital

Edward Argar Excerpts

Tuesday 8th June 2021 Commons Chamber

[The Minister for Health (Edward Argar)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Kettering (Mr Hollobone) on securing this debate about the redevelopment of Kettering General Hospital. I know that it is an incredibly important subject for his constituents and, therefore, for him. He is nothing if not a strong champion for the people of Kettering, as Ministers forget to their cost. He works tirelessly on not only this but many other local matters.

I should also highlight the interest in and passion for this subject of my hon. Friend the Member for Wellingborough (Mr Bone)—who remains a friend, despite him seeking to slightly pre-empt and constrain me today by asking a question of my boss, the Secretary of State, a few hours ago in the Chamber—and my hon. Friend the Member for Corby (Tom Pursglove). As my hon. Friend the Member for Wellingborough rightly said, due to his elevated position as a senior Government Whip, my hon. Friend the Member for Corby is unable to speak in the debate, but I know from the interactions and conversations I have had with him on many occasions just how passionate he is about this hospital project on behalf of his constituents. I can reassure his constituents that, while he may not be speaking in the debate, I have had many lengthy discussions with him, and I suspect that I will be hearing from him many times in the future—although, hopefully, if I can offer some reassurance to my hon. Friend the Member for Kettering, he may be slightly less vociferous in pursuing me on this matter.

I join my hon. Friend the Member for Kettering in paying tribute to the chief executive and the team at Kettering General Hospital for the amazing work they do. They have worked tirelessly throughout this pandemic for his constituents and those of my hon. Friend the Member for Corby, as they do day in, day out, year in, year out for the people who live in that area. It has been a pleasure to take a very close interest in this matter. As my hon. Friend the Member for Kettering knows through his experience in the House, it is sometimes very difficult to say no to him, which can get Ministers into trouble; he is extremely persuasive.

Turning to the substance of the debate, I am delighted that the rebuild of the Kettering General Hospital part of the foundation trust is part of our plans to build 48 new hospitals by 2030—the biggest hospital building programme in a generation. To kick-start the scheme, Kettering General Hospital NHS Foundation Trust has already received £3.7 million of seed funding to develop its plans for the rebuilding of Kettering General Hospital.

Before I turn to the urgent care hub, my hon. Friend the Member for Wellingborough highlighted that plans for that had been mooted, discussed and possibly even agreed before 2015—before my hon. Friend the Member for Corby and I joined this House. The difference, I would suggest, is that on that occasion there was no budget allocated to the trust. For the urgent care hub, there is a budget allocated to it now, following our announcement in 2019, which followed lobbying by my hon. Friend the Member for Kettering. That funding will help transform the provision of urgent and critical care in this area. As he says, £46 million has been allocated for that project.

My hon. Friend asks why it is that, 20 months on since that debate and that visit—I remember them well and I will turn to them in a moment—the money has not been fully drawn down. This is in no way a criticism, but I would say that that is because of the announcement of the new hospital programme and the fact that the trust has, quite rightly, changed what it would like as a result. Therefore, discussions have had to take place about how those two funding streams can be meshed together. I will turn to that in a moment.

As my hon. Friend mentioned, the urgent care hub and the new hospital that are to be built share a set of common enabling works that have been factored into the new hospital development. As he and his trust have requested, we have shown flexibility and agreed to mesh the two projects together if an appropriate way of doing so, including the funding, can be found. As a result, the trust is seeking to incorporate the urgent care hub delivery into the wider redevelopment of the site. That means that the UCH may now be part of the first stage of building the new hospital, but he rightly highlights how approaching this in a more holistic way than a “phase 1 and 2” approach provides opportunities and synergies for achieving better value for money. He has made that point to me and to others.

On the drawdown of funding, the £46 million is available, subject to business case approvals and how those two funding streams can be meshed together in a single project. On drawing down from the new hospital programme fund more broadly, we have a one-year spending settlement from the Treasury. Therefore, if we wish to start drawing down from future years funding and make commitments, that is a matter for the Treasury and a future spending review. My hon. Friend quite rightly highlights, as I expected he would, the need for a synergistic approach between the Department of Health and Social Care and Her Majesty’s Treasury.

All of the new hospitals that will be delivered as part of the programme, including Kettering, are working with the central programme team, with the support of regional, system and local trust leaderships, to design and deliver their hospital in keeping with this approach. The central programme team and the new senior responsible officer, Natalie Forrest, who joined the team and took over its leadership at the beginning of this year, are working closely with the trust on the new build at Kettering and considering all the options currently on the table. I understand that they have had productive meetings, and I look forward to their having further productive meetings.

The programmatic approach will need to be carefully applied to these proposals, as for any other hospital in the new hospital programme, to see how we can best ensure value for money for the taxpayer through standardisation of design and the use of modern methods of construction, without unnecessarily constraining the ambitions of the trust’s plans, in so far as that is possible. The central team, as I have said, will engage with trusts to maximise the application of these approaches to ensure that the scheme has manageable, realistic and, indeed, affordable costs. Funding discussions for these projects are ongoing, and final amounts will be determined through the established business case and Treasury processes.

To stray slightly from the central theme, as my hon. Friend will know—as, indeed, he said in his remarks—Kettering General Hospital NHS Foundation Trust also received £1 million pounds as part of the £450 million investment to help upgrade A&Es and to help the NHS respond to winter pressures and the risks of further outbreaks of coronavirus. That funding was used to support compliance with social distancing and infection prevention and control at Kettering.

On interactions and conversations with the trust, as I have alluded to, the senior responsible officer, Natalie Forrest, met the trust on 2 March for a bilateral roundtable with its senior leadership team to discuss its proposed plans for the build. I understand that those discussions were productive, and they are ongoing. I, too, met the trust in February, with the SRO, to discuss the plans for a new build at Kettering General Hospital. As my hon. Friend mentions, I was fortunate enough to visit the hospital in September 2019 to see for myself, and to be shown by him at his most persuasive, what the case for investment was. As he mentioned, I also had the pleasure of answering a Westminster Hall debate last October on the need for the urgent care hub being funded and built in Kettering, during which I also had the pleasure of confirming the funding, following on from the announcement and promise made by my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister to my hon. Friend. Today’s debate is probably not the right time to discuss this, but I know that all three of my hon. Friends have highlighted the wider opportunities of combining health and social care for vulnerable adults in Northamptonshire.

Our ambitious programme to build 40 new hospitals by 2030 has confirmed funding of £3.7 billion at this point. That is an important and extremely positive start, but we continue to work with Her Majesty’s Treasury on future funding for the whole programme, including for Kettering, and the profiling of the availability of that funding. That is not the reason I am not, at this Dispatch Box, being gently lured by my hon. Friend into a clear commitment today on firm profiling of financial allocations for Kettering at this stage; rather, it is because deciding the funding level for a project of this scale, at this early stage in the process, before full design, exploration or scoping is complete, would not be the most appropriate approach, although I take his point about, for want of a better way of putting it, the need for speed.

Our experience of Government projects and, specifically, the lessons learned from the early work of the Chancellor’s Project Speed taskforce and from the experts in the Government’s Infrastructure and Projects Authority tell us that confirming funding for large, complex projects too early, before all parties are fully agreed on the future approach, can put the project and its overall cost at risk. I am not in any way questioning the ability of my hon. Friend’s local hospital trust to come up with a costed and extremely effective project plan, but it is important, as he would expect, that we are conscious of the need to ensure that we get value for money and the best outcomes for his constituents.

In conclusion, I pay tribute to my hon. Friend, and to my hon. Friends the Members for Wellingborough and for Corby, for the work they are doing to support the redevelopment of Kettering General Hospital. I know that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State gave the commitment to my hon. Friend the Member for Wellingborough that he would meet him, and I know that he will honour that. I reiterate my commitment that if any point, on perhaps at a more detailed or granular level, my hon. Friend the Member for Kettering wishes to meet me or the SRO again, I am happy to do that. Perhaps as we see progress made in opening up our country again, I might be able to enjoy the pleasure of returning to Kettering to see him and his hospital trust in person. I look forward to continuing to work with him to making sure that this ambitious and innovative approach to building new hospitals is a success.

My hon. Friend is, rightly, incredibly proud of his team in Kettering. He and his colleagues have done a fantastic job of gently inducting me into quite how fantastic the team are and what is needed to get this project going. It was one of the first visits I made when I became a Minister holding this role, so I have a particular affection for that area—I am an east midlands MP, so I know it well. I hope that we will continue to be able to work hand in hand with his trust, the national programme and Her Majesty’s Treasury to move this programme forward at pace. I know it is what he wants, but most importantly I know it is what his constituents would want and expect of us.

Question put and agreed to.