North Tees Hospital — House of Commons, 2021-10-28
Topic: Health
Edward John Comport Argar (Conservative, Centre-right): Given that I have also committed to visiting places in Norfolk and—I think—Lancashire, it will be a pretty big tour. That is all I will say As I said, I commend my hon. Friend the Member for Stockton South on his campaign on behalf of the hospital and on the dynamism that he has brought to it and to this place. He set out clearly the context of the hospital in terms of his constituency and the healthcare needs of his constituents. Two things that he said in particular struck me as very powerful statements. First, he set out the difference in life expectancy at 64 years compared with over 80 just up the road. Secondly, I was struck by the age of the hospital—it predates my existence, so it almost certainly predates his as well—and the impact that the design standards of that time and the ageing of the hospital has on its operation and maintenance costs as well as physically keeping it functioning as an acute hospital The Government have made clear our commitment to levelling up outcomes across the country, and that will certainly extend to benefiting the people of his constituency. To level up effectively, we need to improve health outcomes, and we are committed to reducing health disparities between the most and least deprived areas of the United Kingdom. Yesterday, as my hon. Friend said, the Chancellor confirmed that the Government are backing our NHS with a significant capital settlement including £5.9 billion to cut waiting lists as well as for surgical hubs, community diagnostic centres and IT improvements. That will create a step change in the quality and efficiency of care up and down the country. Of course, giving people greater opportunity to get diagnosed and scanned earlier may lead to an increase in the need for services at his hospital and others as people have their illnesses identified and need to have them treated. I will turn in a moment to his powerful plea for a new hospital My hon. Friend also touched on the critical need for trusts to maintain their estates. We are pleased to confirm that the spending review continues to back trusts with significant annual operational capital investment to do that, enabling them to maintain and refurbish their premises. Crucially, that is with multi-year predictability and certainty. We all know how, in capital spending, the longer the settlement in years, the easier it is both to plan for it and to get a better deal for the investment from those being employed to carry it out. More broadly, we previously confirmed an initial £3.7 billion over the four-year period from spending review 2020 to make progress on the building of 48 new hospitals by 2030. Thirty of the hospitals already announced are due to be built outside London and the south-east. Of course that comes on top of additional funding to upgrade hospitals My hon. Friend is, as ever, passionate and persistent in putting the case for North Tees to be among these new hospitals, as is the hon. Gentleman. I reassure my hon. Friend that I never tire of having the opportunity to talk about this with him and having him putting the case to me; he is always very welcome to do so. I will turn shortly to the process and timelines for these additional eight new hospitals on top of those already announced, but first I want to highlight a little of the significant investment that North Tees and Hartlepool NHS Foundation Trust has seen in recent times That investment includes: £3.5 million as part of our 2020-21 critical infrastructure risk fund to help it address backlog maintenance across the locations of services in the trust; £3 million as part of our A&E upgrades fund for covid measures, including funding additional streaming capacity for the emergency department at the University Hospital of North Tees; and as part of our £200 million diagnostic investment to replace diagnostic machines that are more than 10 years old, the trust has received a new CT scanner that has been installed and operational since 2020 at University Hospital of Hartlepool Of course, we are aware of the need for further investment across the NHS estate, and that is why the Government have been doing ambitious work providing substantial capital investment to support the biggest hospital building programme in a generation. As my hon. Friend has already highlighted, the Government have launched the next phase of implementation for our hospital building programme. On 15 July we invited expressions of interest from trusts who wished to be considered for inclusion in the next wave. The deadline for submitting expressions of interest passed in early September and, without prejudicing the decision, I was pleased to receive a submission from the University Hospital of North Tees We are of course committed to a robust selection process for these next eight hospitals, and as such I am sure my hon. Friend and the hon. Gentleman will understand that I cannot comment on individual bids substantively while that selection is ongoing. The submission and assessment of expressions of interest is the first of a two-stage process for the selection of the next eight, to be followed by a more detailed process for long-listed schemes later in the year, considering schemes against multiple priorities, including: transforming services to deliver better, joined-up care; creating stronger and greener NHS buildings; and of course looking at need and the state of buildings that need to be replaced. Another key criterion is the fair allocation of investment by addressing levelling-up criteria. We aim to make and announce a final decision on the next eight hospitals in spring 2022 My hon. Friend highlighted his concerns about private finance in the context of the legacy of the previous Labour Government and what that meant for his hospital trust. As he is aware, the Government have retired—that is the nice way of putting it—the private finance initiative used so extensively by previous Labour Governments, so, in future, new hospitals built for the NHS will no longer be privately financed. My Department continues to work with the NHS to do more to maximise the value of existing PFI contracts. I would encourage any trust concerned about their PFI contract to contact my officials for help. I continue to have discussions with Her Majesty’s Treasury more broadly and strategically about addressing the costly legacy of PFI in the NHS To conclude, I reiterate my gratitude, both to the hon. Member for Stockton North for the tenor in which he always approaches campaigning for his constituents and their hospital, but particularly to my hon. Friend the Member for Stockton South for the work he is doing to support the refurbishment of North Tees Hospital. As I said, he brings a passion and a dynamism to this place on behalf of his constituents, and I am very conscious of the fact that, terrier-like, he will not let go until he has achieved what he seeks to achieve on behalf of his constituents. I commend him for that The Government are committed to delivering their improvement programmes to hospitals and the NHS estate across the country and look forward to delivering the step change in the quality and efficiency of care underpinned by my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer’s announcements yesterday Question put and agreed to.