Yvette Cooper, Secretary of State for Health, has confirmed over £1.5 billion of investment to tackle urgent problems with hospital buildings and facilities. The money will come from the £6.75 billion Estates Safety Fund, part of the government’s capital budget for health.
Over £200 million of this investment will fund 10 major hospital projects, while over £1.3 billion will go towards maintenance, safety and resilience improvements, including new operating theatres, children’s wards, safer maternity and mental health facilities and improvements to protect vital services that help doctors diagnose and treat patients.
Alongside action being taken to improve urgent and emergency care, the investment will strengthen the long-term resilience of NHS services by addressing ageing infrastructure and critical safety risks across the estate. For example, investment in cooling and ventilation systems will help hospitals adapt to more frequent periods of extreme heat. It will help hospitals cope with changing patterns of demand while maintaining safe, high-quality care for patients.
The investment will also support wider efforts to improve patient flow through hospitals, complementing ongoing work with community and social care services to help patients receive the right care in the right place and leave hospital safely when they are ready.
Ten major improvement projects
• Stepping Hill Hospital, Stockport - £26 million: a new pathology building will protect the testing services doctors rely on to diagnose patients and provide urgent care
• Bristol Royal Infirmary, Bristol - £41 million: improvements to operating theatres will make the facilities safer and more reliable for patients needing surgery
• Queen Elizabeth Hospital, Gateshead - £12 million: redevelopment of maternity facilities will provide a better environment for women receiving care
• Wycombe Hospital, Buckinghamshire - £25 million: a new clinical building will allow services to move out of an ageing tower and into modern facilities
• Crystal Centre and Linden Centre, Essex - £15 million: 14 new bedrooms will provide additional space for mental health patients and allow existing wards to be improved
• Lister Hospital, Hertfordshire - £11 million: a new children’s ward will provide safe, modern space for children needing hospital care
• Southend Hospital, Essex - £1 million: planning will begin to replace an ageing hospital tower, helping provide safer facilities for maternity, neonatal, cancer and outpatient care
• St George’s Hospital, Stafford - £25 million: improvements to a mental health unit will replace ageing facilities and provide a safer environment for patients
• Royal Free Hospital, London - £32 million: 2 new operating theatres will give patients access to safer, modern facilities for complex operations
• John Howard Centre, London - £25 million: refurbishment will create safer, more suitable facilities for people receiving long-term mental health care.
Cooling, ventilation and overheating
More than £32m will also go to projects that help hospitals adapt to more frequent periods of extreme heat, reducing risk to patient care. These include:
• Manchester Royal Infirmary - £154,000 to replace the PET scanner chiller, ensuring reliable temperature control for highly sensitive imaging
• Rampton Hospital, Nottinghamshire - £527,000 to replace air conditioning in a unit, keeping areas cool to maintain a stable environment for patients, staff and visitors
• St Peter’s Hospital, Ashford - £791,000 to restore reliable cooling capacity to support safe operating conditions within theatres.
These improvements will help to maintain safe temperatures for patients and staff, protect critical equipment and improve the resilience of hospital services during heatwaves.
As part of improving overall estate safety and planning for next summer, Yvette Cooper has also instructed the NHS to look at heatwaves and other necessary safety schemes - such as increasing resilience to flooding - in the next round, drawing on their experience from this summer.
