Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Victoria Atkins and Navendu Mishra

Tuesday 23rd April 2024 Commons Chamber

[Victoria Atkins]

I thank my hon. Friend, and also wish her the very best of luck, as she is due to abseil down the hospital next month for its radiotherapy appeal. I very much hope she lands safely and does not trouble Southend hospital. I was delighted to visit the hospital at her invitation earlier this month, and I was very much impressed by the immediate improvements that the £8 million funding has meant in the Dowsett ward and for discharge and treatment times through accident and emergency. This is part of our plan, both through the urgent and emergency care plan and through our recovery plan for electives and the new hospital programme, to rebuild hospitals and provide that investment so that clinicians can use it to treat their local patients.

[Navendu Mishra (Stockport) (Lab)]

Last month, I met the chief executive of Stepping Hill Hospital in Stockport. She informed me that the primary out-patient building, which provides 85% of out-patient capacity, was recently condemned. While funding has been secured to build two additional wards, they will not be ready for at least 15 months, causing huge disruption in the interim. Fourteen years of underinvestment has left Stepping Hill Hospital quite literally crumbling. Will the Government provide urgent capital investment for Stepping Hill, so that my constituents and our brilliant NHS staff can have the facilities they need?

[Victoria Atkins]

I very much hope that the hon. Gentleman has already spoken to his integrated care board, because he will know that responsibility for local investment decisions rightly rests at local level. I can say that, as a Government, we have very much invested in hospital upgrades, including £4.2 billion going to integrated care boards this financial year. I hear the timetable he cites, but I encourage him to go to his integrated care board to ask what more it is doing.