Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to his oral statement of 20 January 2025 on New Hospital Programme Review, Official Report, columns 748-750, whether he considered (a) the remoteness of and (b) recent trends of deprivation in Torridge and Tavistock constituency when deciding which hospital redevelopment projects would be included in Waves (i), (ii) and (iii) of the new hospitals development programme.

I refer the Rt. Hon. member to the answers I gave to Questions 34236 and 34237 on 7 March 2025.

Additionally, as set out in the Plan for Implementation, the New Hospital Programme (NHP) review used a range of data to assess in scope schemes including the North Devon District Hospital scheme. This included assessing each scheme under criteria for mitigated risk, including health deprivation, deliverability and transformation opportunity.

As part of this process, the review also used professional expertise and judgment of clinical, programme, construction and finance colleagues from within the NHP, the Department and NHS England to identify and overlay other factors of concern before the schemes were prioritised.