New Hospital Programme Review

Lord Liddle Excerpts

Tuesday 28th January 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Merron (Lab)]

While I cannot answer exactly on Cambridgeshire, which the noble Lord raises, I can say that the department and NHS England are working with integrated care boards to ensure that there is a priority on high-impact projects where investment will unlock all the things we are all looking for, which are significant productivity gains and additional usable space from existing buildings. Of course, ICBs are responsible for that. I perhaps should also make the point that this is the first dedicated national capital fund for primary care since 2020. The noble Lord rightly quoted me back about the benefits of investing in GP practice. We are probably all familiar with that. There have been a number of reviews, including, of course, the independent review of the noble Lord, Lord Darzi, which spoke to the point about the need for capital investment in primary care.

[Lord Liddle (Lab)]

My Lords, will my noble friend the Minister and the ministerial team at health accept my congratulations that they have had the courage to come up with a realistic programme, whereas what we had before was fantasy? This is very important. I read the Darzi report, and it has been clear that for years capital money has been used in order to fill revenue gaps at the end of the year because, basically, the whole system was underfunded. It is also clear that, as well as wanting to put the estate and buildings right, there is a tremendous need for investment in hospital equipment, scanners and all the rest in order to improve quickly the effectiveness of delivering good services to patients, and that the Government have to balance these pressures. It looks to me as though they are doing it right.

[Baroness Merron (Lab)]

I am, of course, delighted to accept the thanks from my noble friend, and I will indeed share it with the ministerial team. As has already been raised by the noble Lord, Lord Scriven, and as my noble friend has pointed out, robbing Peter to pay Paul does nothing; productivity, safety, quality of care and providing services, including tackling waiting lists, requires investment in capital and dealing with the state of buildings and the estate. I am sure that we have all seen many examples of where failure to invest has not helped at all. I am glad that my noble friend welcomes the investment that we are making, not just in new surgical hubs but scanners, beds and new radiotherapy machines to improve cancer treatment. All these are about tackling the waiting lists because we inherited the highest ever waiting lists and the lowest-ever patient satisfaction, and we are determined to turn that around.