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news.UK health minister Andy Burnham has given the go-ahead for six new National Health Service hospital developments worth almost GBP1.5 billion. The new facilities, which will see hundreds of single rooms replace Victorian wards, are expected to offer more private, personal care to patients across the UK and will form the biggest hospital building program in the history of the National Health Service.
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The first new hospital buildings, in which up to half of the beds will be in single rooms, are expected to open from 2010. The go-ahead for the six new hospitals follows a UK Department of Health review to check that all the schemes were locally affordable.
The new hospital buildings receiving the go-ahead are in the North Staffordshire, Tameside and Glossop, Salford, Walsall, South Devon and Leicester National Health Service (NHS) trust regions.
Leicester’s scheme will involve an investment of GBP711 million in a mixture of new and refurbished buildings across three hospital sites. A brand new women’s hospital will be built at Glenfield and a stand-alone children’s hospital will be created at the Leicester Royal Infirmary. The General will become a dedicated planned care and rehabilitation hospital to support the other two emergency sites.
Among the other highlights of the initiative, South Devon Healthcare NHS Trust will provide separate nursing bays for men and women in a GBP163 million redevelopment of Torbay Hospital, and Tameside and Glossop Acute Hospitals NHS Trust will replace two Nightingale surgical wards under a GBP68 million scheme.
The multi-million pound developments will bring the combined investment in new hospitals to more than GBP10 billion since 1997 once the six schemes reach financial close. A total of 76 schemes are already built and open, with another 30 under construction.