Kettering General Hospital

Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at 2:33 pm on 10 September 2021.

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Photo of Philip Hollobone Philip Hollobone Conservative, Kettering 2:33, 10 September 2021

It is a delight to see you in the Chair, Madam Deputy Speaker. I thank Mr Speaker for granting me this debate, and I welcome the hospitals Minister and my hon. Friend Mr Bone to their places. My hon. Friend Tom Pursglove would be here, but other engagements sadly prevent him from being here. I thank all staff at Kettering General Hospital, who always perform magnificently but have done so especially over the pandemic period, and in particular Simon Weldon, the magnificent group chief executive.

I commend and thank the Minister for his personal interest over a number of years in this important issue. He visited the hospital on 7 October 2019. He responded to an Adjournment debate that same month, when he outlined plans for a £46 million investment in the new urgent care hub. He also responded to the last Adjournment debate, on 8 June earlier this year, and met the hospital and the three local MPs in February. May I also thank the Prime Minister, who undertook a five-hour nightshift visit to the hospital in February last year?

I welcome the Government’s unprecedented investment in the NHS and their commitment to the national hospital building programme. This has resulted in promised commitments to Kettering hospital of £46 million for an on-site urgent care hub, £350 million in health infrastructure plan 2 funding for 2025 to 2030, and a write-off last year of £167 million of trust debt at the hospital. That is a total investment of a staggering £563 million in Kettering hospital, which is a record-breaking figure. However, the Minister will appreciate that promises are one thing but delivery is another. The problem that the hospital faces is that these two funding streams from the Government—£46 million for the urgent care hub and £350 million for the phased rebuild—are not being meshed together by the Health Department and Her Majesty’s Treasury.

In a way, the problem is a nice one to have. Kettering hospital has successfully won access to these separate funding streams. To explain in a bit more detail, this is £46 million of STP—sustainability and transformation partnership—wave 4 capital, to be spent by 2024, to build a new on-site urgent care hub to replace and enhance one of the most overcrowded accident and emergencies in the country, and £350 million of HIP2 funding, for the period 2025 to 2030, for a phased rebuild of the hospital on the existing site, as one of the 40 designated hospitals in the national hospital programme.