{"id":129897,"date":"2023-07-17T15:04:05","date_gmt":"2023-07-17T14:04:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.pbctoday.co.uk\/news\/?p=129897"},"modified":"2023-07-17T15:04:05","modified_gmt":"2023-07-17T14:04:05","slug":"government-not-deliver-40-new-hospitals-2030-nao-report","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.pbctoday.co.uk\/news\/planning-construction-news\/government-not-deliver-40-new-hospitals-2030-nao-report\/129897\/","title":{"rendered":"Government will fail to deliver 40 new hospitals by 2030, according to NAO report"},"content":{"rendered":"

National Audit Office research has found that\u00a0of the 40 new hospitals promised in the New Hospitals Programme, only 11 are actual new builds<\/h2>\n

A key campaign promise of building 40 new hospitals<\/a>, as mentioned in the Conservative manifesto and emphasised several times since, appears unlikely to reach the 2030 target, according to a review from the National Audit Office(NAO).<\/p>\n

The scheme has already cost \u00a31.1bn by March of this year, and the NAO described progress as \u201cslower than expected\u201d and poor value for money.<\/p>\n

Only 11 projects actually qualify as “whole new hospitals”<\/h3>\n

The NAO found that of the 32 projects being taken forward in the NHP’s 2020 update, only 11 are entirely new builds.<\/p>\n

Rebuilds of existing hospitals, additional buildings or significant redevelopments of existing buildings accounted for 20 of the 32 projects. One scheme failed to meet any of those criteria, according to the NAO.<\/p>\n

Describing the Department of Health and Social Care’s approach as “maximum risk”, the watchdog also warned that if larger hospital projects were to start construction simultaneously, as current plans suggest, the increased demand on builders and supply will further push up costs<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The modular Hospital 2.0 design was intended to reduce costs<\/h3>\n

The New Hospital Programme previously attempted to reconcile costs and designs through creating a standardised hospital design, known as Hospital 2.0, but a shortage of technical staff has delayed project completion until May 2024.<\/p>\n

All major schemes seeking budget approval have stalled as a result.<\/p>\n

Designed to act as a “minimum viable product”, Hospital 2.0 has faced criticism for being designed according to outdated standards, such as depedence on wards rather than single rooms.<\/p>\n

The design also works on the basis of\u00a0hospitals working at a consistently high capacity, which exacerbates existing strains and reduces the hospital’s ability to respond to health care crisis, such as pandemics.<\/p>\n

The hospitals could then be forced to run at high occupancy levels, as much as 95%, which were said by the NAO to be \u201chighly undesirable and indicative of crisis\u201d.<\/p>\n

NHP has not “meaningfully” engaged with industry, warns NAO<\/h3>\n

The report was condemning, stating that by “the definition the government used in
\n2020, it will not now deliver 40 new hospitals by 2030.”<\/p>\n

Recommendations from the NAO report include:<\/h4>\n