University Hospital of North Tees

Luke Myer Excerpts

Wednesday 21st October 2026 Westminster Hall

[The Minister for Social Care and Mental Health (Alison McGovern)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Stringer. I congratulate the hon. Member for Stockton West (Matt Vickers) on securing this important debate. It is good to hear him rightly put across the strength of feeling that I am sure many people in Stockton and elsewhere nearby have in support of the staff of the hospital and how people feel about it. It is very important to the communities that it serves, and patients and staff rightly deserve facilities that are safe, modern and fit to deliver high-quality care.

I must offer a brief apology to the hon. Member. I am obviously not the Minister directly responsible for this area—we have a clash, unfortunately, which is why I am responding. However, I will make sure that the Minister with direct responsibility hears all of the points that he makes, and I am going to do my best to respond to the questions he has asked.

[Luke Myer (Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland) (Lab)]

This is a Teesside-wide issue, and it is felt by communities across the region. All of us, as MPs representing the Tees Valley, believe that there needs to be a long-term future for this hospital. I know that my hon. Friend the Member for Stockton North (Chris McDonald) is also supporting the trust’s strategic outline case for the future of the hospital. We need to see a future here. However, there are also other hospitals within the trust’s area that are sitting and rotting. I see one in my constituency in East Cleveland. It is controlled by NHS Property Services and there are huge parts of that building that are sitting empty, which could have more services in. I urge the Minister to meet with us collectively to talk about the future for hospitals across the Tees region.

[Alison McGovern]

As I was just mentioning, I will make sure that the Minister responsible hears my hon. Friend’s point and the discussion we have had in this debate and that they can take forward that strategic discussion about the future. I also hope and anticipate that I will be able to answer the questions from the hon. Member for Stockton West in the contribution that I am going to make. If that is not the case, we will certainly follow up in writing with him and with other Members in Tees as well.

We recognise the need to plan for the hospital’s long-term future for all the reasons that Members have set out and which are understood. That requires three things: more investment in the NHS estate, greater certainty so that investment can be planned over the long term, and greater autonomy for local leaders to decide how it is best used. That is the approach that we have set out in our 10-year capital plan for health and social care.

The challenges at North Tees reflect a much wider problem across the NHS estate. For too long, capital investment was insufficient and short term, with capital budgets repeatedly raided to meet day-to-day pressures. The result is an estate carrying the consequences of years of under-investment, and hon. Members have set out the consequences people are living with. Previous Governments allowed these pressures to build, leaving too many NHS buildings ageing and in poor condition. Patients and staff across the country are living with the consequences.

We cannot undo that legacy overnight, but we can change the way the NHS invests in its buildings—moving away from short-term fixes towards sustained investment and proper long-term planning. First, we are investing more. After years of under-investment, we are providing the largest health capital budget in NHS history, with annual spending rising to £15 billion by the end of this spending review period.

Within that, we are targeting funding where the need is greatest. The estates safety fund, established in 2025-26, will be provided with £6.75 billion over the next nine years to tackle the poorest-quality parts of the NHS estate and to ensure safe environments for patients and staff. That sits alongside around £21 billion in operational capital over the spending review period, empowering local health organisations to invest in their priorities, including their estates. We are also investing around £5 billion over the spending review period to expand and modernise diagnostic, elective, mental health and emergency services, helping to increase capacity, cut waiting times and improve urgent and emergency care performance, as mentioned by Members in the debate already.

Secondly, we are providing greater certainty over that investment. We are providing £65 billion over 10 years for operational capital and estate maintenance, giving the NHS unprecedented long-term certainty to plan and improve its estate. For the first time, providers have multi-year, operational capital allocations alongside longer-term certainty over estate maintenance funding. Instead of having to plan from one year to the next, NHS leaders can look ahead, prioritise investment over several years and develop longer-term plans for their estates and services.

Thirdly, we are giving local leaders greater autonomy about how that investment is used. We are devolving more control to the frontline, streamlining capital approvals, giving local leaders greater freedom to invest according to local need, helping projects to move forward more quickly and delivering better value for money for taxpayers. This matters, because those closest to patients are best placed to understand what their communities need. We are giving them more investment, greater certainty over the resources available and greater freedom to decide how those resources can best support local services, which brings me back to North Tees.

I have heard the case that hon. Members have made about the University Hospital of North Tees becoming part of the new hospital programme. As the hon. Member for Stockton West mentioned, there are currently no plans to invite further schemes to join the programme, as our focus is on delivering the existing schemes set out in the plan for implementation.

However, the new hospital programme is not the only route through which we are investing in the NHS estate. As I have set out, we are providing significant long-term capital investment through the estates safety fund and operational capital programmes to expand and modernise services, alongside the certainty and flexibility I have mentioned. Over the next nine years, more than £1.1 billion is planned through the estates safety fund for the North East and Yorkshire region. Importantly, the fund gives local NHS leaders greater flexibility to prioritise that investment against the most pressing infrastructure risks across the region.

The hon. Member for Stockton West asked some questions on funding and what routes are open. This funding means that the case for further investment at North Tees can be considered through that process, making sure that local priorities drive decision making. The longer-term funding certainty we have provided means that decisions can be made on strategic plans for the estate, rather than short-term pressures alone—although I acknowledge the point that has been made about flooding and so on.

The North Tees and Hartlepool NHS foundation trust has already been allocated more than £3.2 million through the estates safety fund for vital repairs at North Tees and Hartlepool hospitals over the next four years. That sits alongside more than £78 million in operational capital for local priorities, including repairs at North Tees. However, I say again that the Ministers responsible and others are aware of this debate and the points that Members have quite rightly raised about the consequences of the current position and what staff are dealing with.

The Government recently announced £1 million to refurbish the emergency department at North Tees over two years as part of our £140 million boost to NHS urgent care. That builds on £2.7 million already invested in the emergency assessment unit to increase capacity and improve patient flow, safety and experience.

We are also investing directly in services across Tees Valley more widely. In 2025, the trust received more than £4 million to expand the Tees Valley community diagnostic centre, which we have discussed, as part of our £343 million expansion of community and crisis mental health services.

New facilities are planned in Hartlepool, Middlesbrough, Redcar and Cleveland, alongside a dedicated mental health emergency department at Roseberry Park. Together, this sits within £671 million of planned capital investment to support improved NHS performance in secondary and emergency care across the North East and Yorkshire region over the next four years.

[Luke Myer]

There is not yet much clarity on where some of that funding will go in terms of setting up those mental health services, particularly in Redcar and Cleveland. If we have a hospital with a wing that is sitting empty, it seems to me a no-brainer that that wing could be a site for some of those services, but obviously I would like to have a conversation with the Department to understand whether there are any such plans, and if there are not, whether we can get some confirmation on that.

[Alison McGovern]

I thank my hon. Friend for asking me a question that is actually within my direct responsibilities, which does make my life slightly easier. The issue that he raises regarding the suitability of location is very important. It is one that I am considering through our work on the mental health strategy. If he would like to have a discussion with me about it, alongside local leaders, I would be more than happy to agree to that.

In addition, decisions about the future of local services and estates should be shaped by those who understand them best, and I will take this opportunity to say on the record that that includes Members of Parliament. Too often, MPs have not played that role. As MPs, we frequently have a huge amount of local intel about how to make services work best and I encourage all my colleagues in the NHS to work with MPs and to use the local knowledge that they have. However, North Tees and Hartlepool NHS foundation trust, working with the local NHS, is best placed to assess the needs of its patients, determine the right model of care and plan the infrastructure required to deliver it.

The hon. Member for Stockton West asked me some questions about A&E and management numbers. I have just talked about the importance of the insights that MPs have and I encourage local NHS leaders to listen to what he and other colleagues have said in this debate when they are making decisions. We want to ensure that local leaders have a strong foundation to make decisions, and multi-year funding allows them to look beyond immediate pressures, consider investment across their estate and develop credible plans over a longer period. Given what the hon. Member said in this debate, there are clearly two jobs to be done: first, to try to deal with the problems in front of us at North Tees hospital; and, secondly, to develop a longer-term plan for the future in a credible way. I hope that some of the decisions that we have taken will enable those jobs to be done.

These are significant problems that we are discussing and, as I have already said, I am realistic about our ability to deal overnight with what is a substantial and strategic problem. However, we must use the opportunity to plan for the longer-term future of North Tees hospital to get a clinically led and affordable plan that is supported by a clear business case—not planning one year at a time, but being able to look to the long term with that investment, greater certainty and more autonomy as tools to plan properly for the future of the services and the estate.