Health Infrastructure Plan

Philip Hollobone Excerpts

Monday 30th September 2019 Commons Chamber

[Edward Argar]

I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman. He is absolutely right to highlight the challenges about Midland Metropolitan Hospital. I know, in the spirit of bipartisan sentiment, how hard he has been working on that issue on behalf of his constituents, and I also know how hard Toby Lewis has been working on this as well in running that hospital trust. I have looked into the matter recently. I am very happy to meet him to talk through with him where we are and what the next steps are because, like him, I am keen that we get things moving.

[Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)]

Record numbers of patients are being treated at Kettering General Hospital with increasingly world-class treatments. The difficulty that we have at Kettering General Hospital is the A&E department, which, when it was constructed 25 years ago, was designed to cope with 45,000 visitors and is expected to go through 100,000 attendances this year. The solution is an urgent care hub. There is already a fully worked-up business plan in place. May I welcome the addition of Kettering General Hospital on the list of future projects and ask: when can the hospital expect the money and when can it expect to start to build the new urgent care hub?

[Edward Argar]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his question. He is right to highlight the importance of design, particularly in A&E and emergency departments, for the ability of staff to manage increasing demand and increasingly complex cases. As he highlights, Kettering General Hospital NHS Foundation Trust is included in HIP 2 for the seed funding to develop that business case and its proposal. I am happy to work with him and I hope that he will work with the trust to develop the business case in accordance with the criteria for bidding against future funds.