Exclusive: Hancock denies political motive for inclusion of ‘Red Wall’ project in new hospital programme

The programme’s selection process has never been explained, but HSJ has now obtained a longlist of 50 trusts whose projects were put forward by NHSE, and used to select the final schemes (see below).

In October 2020, ministers publicly announced 35 trusts which had been included onto the ‘new hospitals programme’. Some had more than one scheme, increasing the total to 40.

All of the 35 trusts had appeared on the NHSE longlist, except two: Morecombe Bay and County Durham and Darlington.

University Hospitals of Morecambe Bay FT’s project had previously been included in 2019’s Health Infrastructure Plan, the precursor to the NHP. The Morecambe Bay scheme was merged with the Lancashire Teaching Hospitals project in the 2020 list. 

The other was County Durham and Darlington’s proposal to rebuild Shotley Bridge Community Hospital, in North West Durham. It did not appear on the HIP list.

In 2019, Richard Holden became the first Conservative MP elected in the constituency’s history, on a majority of just over 1,000 votes. It was one of the party’s historic wins in the so-called ‘Red Wall’ of northern seats usually won by Labour.

Mr Holden had previously worked as a media adviser on Boris Johnson’s leadership campaign, and made a new hospital one of his campaign pledges.

Then health secretary Matt Hancock visited the Shotley Bridge site with Mr Holden in September 2020, a month before the final NHP list was announced.

Mr Holden said the pair had discussed the need for a rebuild during his visit, now estimated to cost up to £50m, as well as during a meeting earlier that year.

Asked why Shotley Bridge was added to the programme despite not being on the NHSE longlist, the Department of Health and Social Care said: “NHS England’s initial longlist was used as the basis for assessing schemes to be part of the new hospital programme.

“Shotley Bridge Hospital was added following an assessment that showed it met the longstanding criteria for selection including clinical need and backlog maintenance.”

The DHSC has already been criticised by the National Audit Office for a “failure in record-keeping” that meant it was impossible to determine how schemes were selected for the programme.

The NAO said in July: “Officials have told us that the final selection of schemes involved choices and judgements for which no further documentation is available.

“Given the amount of taxpayers’ money involved, this is a failure in record keeping and means we cannot determine how the schemes were selected for this significant investment.”

HSJ obtained the longlist via a freedom of information request to the DHSC.

The criteria NHSE used to draw up their options included critical infrastructure risk, maintenance problems and functionally unsuitable space.

A spokesperson for Mr Hancock said the suggestion he influenced the decision for political reasons was “entirely misleading”, but did not dispute any of the facts set out. He added: “Anyway, what’s wrong with the health secretary wanting to build hospitals, and MPs fighting for their constituents to have a brand new one built in their constituency?”

Mr Holden said he was proud to have succeeded in his campaign to secure the new community hospital.