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New Hospital Programme Review Update

District Councillor Reports Uploaded on January 22, 2025

 

New Hospital Programme review update

 

Yesterday the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care gave an update on the outcome of the New Hospital Programme review in Parliament. While critical infrastructure failures and the need for investment in Torbay Hospital has been recognised nationally, we have been informed that our new hospital will be significantly delayed, with our main construction timetable starting between 2033 and 2035. This is hugely disappointing news and represents an extended period for the Trust to be holding significant estate risks.

 

We know that the age and quality of our estate has an impact on our staff and our ability to deliver high quality care and we are committed to ensuring that we continue to improve and mitigate the impacts of our ageing estate.

 

We will now be pausing our work on developing our business plans for New Hospital Programme investment. We will urgently work with regional and national colleagues to look at all other funding options to bring forward immediate plans to reduce our critical infrastructure risk and improve the efficiency of our current buildings.

 

I would like to personally thank the team which has worked so hard to develop our New Hospital Programme business case, this decision was not taken lightly by Government and is a result of real resource constraints. I would also like to thank all of you who help us, on a day-to-day basis, to manage the issues caused by the age and condition of our estate.

 

While this news is disappointing, it is even more important that we work together to improve our services, using all the resources available to us. This includes maximising the opportunity afforded by new facilities such as the day surgery unit, prioritising the backlog maintenance in key areas of clinical need, optimising all our estate and making difficult decisions to disinvest in estate that is not fit for purpose in order that we can reinvest in our core infrastructure. Digital transformation and new ways of working are key opportunities that we need to grasp, and our electronic patient record, Epic, will be hugely important in changing the way we work.

 

I think we can all agree that this outcome is not what we have worked so hard to deliver, for our staff and local people however, working together we can develop our plans to improve our services. Last week, we publicly announced that we have been awarded £14.2million for improvements to our Emergency Department. During recent years we have also been successful in securing funding for new theatres, the new endoscopy unit and the Acute Medical Unit. All these developments are helping us to improve the patient and staff experience. We will work hard put ourselves in the best position to secure funding opportunities to improve our services, wherever possible.

 

With kind regards

Adel Jones

Deputy Chief Executive and Chief Strategy and Transformation Officer.