Revealed: The 20 capital projects promised by the PM

More than £675m will be spent building new hospitals, wards and investing in mental health and primary care across the North, Midlands and East of England. 

London, the South East and South West will receive only £177m, with almost £100m of that sum spent building a new women’s and children’s hospital at the Royal Cornwall Hospital site in Truro.

The South East England region will receive just £48m for the Isle of Wight trust as part of its plans to reconfigure acute services.

The announcement of the 20 projects is part of a series of government announcements due this week designed to show its commitment to increasing NHS funding.

Of the 20 schemes, 14 are for acute hospital services totalling more than £600m while four projects, worth £162m, are for mental health services. Two schemes for improving primary care are worth £83m.

Many of the schemes reverse previous reductions in bed numbers and aim to shore up services ahead of winter. The University Hospital of North Midlands will receive more than £17m to build three new wards with 84 beds while Wye Valley Trust will spend £23.6m creating 72 beds.

Among the biggest winners is Luton and Dunstable University Hospital Foundation Trust which will receive £99.5m to build a new hospital building providing intensive care, a delivery suite and operating theatres.

University Hospitals Birmingham will receive £97.1m for a purpose built building for outpatient, treatment and diagnostic services.

Greater Manchester Mental Health FT will receive £72.3m to build a new adult mental health inpatient unit in Manchester.

NHS Providers chief executive Chris Hopson said: “Today’s announcement is a good start but, given how much lost ground needs to be made up, it is only a start.

“Nine years of austerity and £4.3 billion of capital funding diverted to keep day to day NHS spending in balance have created a £6 billion maintenance backlog, £3 billion of it safety critical.”

He added the investment “can only be the first down payment on a consistent, longer term, approach to rebuilding the NHS and creating the 21^st century infrastructure the NHS requires.”

Danny Mortimer, deputy chief executive of the NHS Confederation, pointed to the fact NHS capital spending was only half the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development average describing it as “woefully inadequate.”

He added: “There is a huge logjam of cases for investment in the NHS and there are many old buildings that cannot be adapted to deliver modern patient care.”

Recognising the need to do more, health and social care secretary Matt Hancock said the Department of Health and Social Care and NHS England would be developing a new health infrastructure plan.

He said: “In the past, decisions over health capital spending has been too piecemeal and uncoordinated. So we’re going to take a more strategic approach with a new health infrastructure plan that will set the priorities for the NHS over the long term.”

The 20 capital investment projects