Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department is taking to help support the Royal Shrewsbury Hospital to tackle delays on progress of the Hospitals Transformation Programme at that hospital.

As with any capital investment, the business case process is led by the Trust in question. In November 2019, NHS England and NHS Improvement (NHSE&I) received a strategic outline business case (SOC) for the Hospital Transformation Programme from the Shrewsbury and Telford Hospitals NHS Trust and determined that the SOC required further work.

In September 2021, the Department made available £370,000 to the Trust for the redevelopment of the SOC and, hence, allow the programme to progress and avoid unnecessary delays. This is part of the £6 million early funding requested by the Trust and approved in principle in November 2020 by the Department and NHSE&I. We are expecting the business case to be received by the Department and NHSE&I national teams for joint review in early 2022.