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

I am sorry to hear about my hon. Friend’s recent visit to the hospital, but I hope he is better now—he certainly looks fighting fit.

The problem that we face at the hospital is twofold. If the hospital goes ahead and builds the £46 million urgent care hub as a stand-alone project, there will not be enough room on site for the future HIP2 works and the hospital will effectively be ruling itself out of the much-heralded national hospital rebuild programme. On the other hand, if the hospital delays the £46 million urgent care hub development until the start of the HIP2 programme in 2025, it will lose the £46 million funding allocation, which expires in 2024, and the urgent care hub will not be built.

If there is a delay to the funding, the biggest headache may well be the failure of the existing, very high-risk, old steam boilers at the hospital site. This is the main thing that keeps the hospital chief executive awake at night. Part of the extra money that is being requested as part of the advance from the HIP2 funding is for a new net zero on-site power plant, so that the old boilers can be replaced and the power systems needed for the HIP2 programme installed. The value-for-money solution is to dovetail the two funding streams by advancing 15%, or £53 million, of the hospital’s already allocated £350 million funding over three years—£6 million in 2021-22, £29 million in 2022-23 and £18 million in 2023-24—and blending it with the £46 million urgent care hub funding.

I wish to make it clear to the Minister that we are not asking for more money; we are asking for an advance of just 15%—£53 million—of the £350 million of HIP2 funding already allocated to the hospital, so as to facilitate a value-for-money start to the hospital’s promised redevelopment.

I have five main asks of the Minister. First, will he confirm that the £46 million STP allocation for the urgent care hub can be combined with the new hospital programme funding scheme to create a single development scheme that can proceed to an outline business case on that basis?

Secondly, will the Minister confirm that the £46 million allocated to the hospital can be used to progress early enabling works that are essential to meeting its delivery timescales?

Thirdly, may we have an early advance of £53 million, spread over the next three years, from the £350 million HIP2 commitment, so that the urgent care hub can be built not as a stand-alone project but as the initial part of the phased hospital redevelopment?

Fourthly, will the Minister confirm that, when delays occur in other larger hospital-rebuilding programmes throughout the country, he will look to create an opportunity for Kettering to receive some of the money to move beyond enabling works before 2025?

Fifthly, will the Minister be kind enough to visit the hospital again? It is two years since his last visit. Kettering General Hospital is only 30 miles from Charnwood, straight down the A6. If he is kind enough to visit, I would be keen to show him the boilers in the power plant, which is a critical part of the required new infrastructure.

Those five asks are not about asking for extra money over and above that which has already been promised; instead, they outline a sensible, flexible, dovetailed approach to funding commitments already given so as to maximise value for money for the taxpayer and ensure that local people get to see as soon as possible the badly needed improvements to our local hospital that we have already been promised. Simply put, the problem is that building the promised urgent care hub is no longer an option on a stand-alone basis, because if it is built as stand-alone project, there will not be enough room on the site for the subsequent HIP2-funding works. The value-for-money solution is to integrate the two funding schemes.

The Minister will know, but I will repeat, that the hospital is ready to go on this work. It owns all the land, so no land deals are required and no extra public consultation is needed. It has written, confirmed support from local planners and the regional NHS. The phased approach would deliver visible and real benefits. It is shovel-ready and has far lower risks than many other hospital-build projects. In developing a whole-site plan that integrates the two funding streams, the hospital has identified the best way of delivering value for money and getting the buildings up, operating and serving local people as quickly as possible.

Kettering General Hospital is unique among the 40 designated hospital rebuilds scheduled to be completed by 2030. First, it already has the Government commitment for a new £46 million urgent care hub, so its future funding is complicated as it comes from two separate funding pipelines; secondly, it is ready to go with an innovative, phased, value-for-money rebuild on land that it already owns, with no planning or consultative hold-ups; thirdly, it serves one of the fastest-growing areas in the whole country; and fourthly, it has one of the most congested A&Es of any hospital—as my hon. Friend the Member for Wellingborough recently experienced—and this needs to be addressed as a matter of urgency. I do not believe that any other hospital in the whole country has such a unique set of circumstances.

Why are improvements at the hospital needed? Kettering General Hospital is a much-loved local hospital. With 500 beds, it has been on its current site, in the heart of the town of Kettering, since 1897—that is 124 years. Most of the residents in the parliamentary seats of Kettering, Corby and Wellingborough were either born there, have been repaired there or, very sadly, have passed away there. There can be few local residents who have not accessed the hospital at some point in their lives. It also has a superb, dedicated, talented and loyal workforce.

The pressure on the hospital is primarily being driven by the very fast population growth locally. The Office for National Statistics shows that we are one of the fastest growing areas in the whole country, at almost double the national average. Kettering ranks sixth for growth in the number of households and 31st for population increase, Corby has the country’s highest birth rate and Kettering Hospital expects a 21% increase in over 80s in the next five years alone.

The area has committed to at least 35,000 new houses over the next 10 years, which is a local population rise of some 84,000 to almost 400,000 people. The A&E now sees up to 300 patients every single day, in a department that is sized to see just 110 safely. Over the next 10 years, the hospital expects the number of A&E attendances to increase by 30,000, equivalent to almost 80 extra patients every day. That is why the improvements are so desperately needed.

The big problem at Kettering Hospital is that the A&E is full. It was constructed in 1994 to cope with 45,000 attendances each year. Now, it is already at about 100,000 attendances a year, which is well over 150% of its capacity. By 2045, 170,000 attendances are expected.

The solution, which everyone agrees, including the Government, is for a new urgent care hub facility, costing £46 million. It would be a two-storey, one-stop shop, with GP services, out-of-hours care, an on-site pharmacy, minor injuries unit, social services, mental healthcare, access to community care services for the frail elderly and a replacement for the A&E. All the NHS organisations locally, as well as NHS Improvement nationally, agree that this is the No. 1 clinical priority for Northamptonshire.

I am glad that the Government have recognised the hospital’s superb business case for this fit-for-purpose emergency care facility, and that it will meet local population growth for the next 30 years. All the local health and social care partners have been involved in its design, and local people need it to get the local urgent care service that meets Government guidance on good practice. When built, the facility will ensure that people who come to the hospital are seen by the right clinician at the right time, first time.

I also warmly welcome the Government’s inclusion of the hospital on the list of 40 hospitals in the national hospital rebuilding programme, and the funding kicks in from 2025. That is important for Kettering Hospital because 70% of the buildings on the main site are more than 30 years old, there is a maintenance backlog of £42 million and 60% of the hospital estate is rated as either poor or bad.

The hospital plan for the redevelopment of the site, as part of the HIP2 programme, offers a phased approach over a number of years, with the extra ward space provided by the funding to be built on top of the urgent care hub. This is in contrast to a number of other hospitals in the HIP2 programme that are seeking an all-in-one-go funding package.

Kettering Hospital is not asking for its HIP2 allocation in an up-front £350 million, all-in-one-go lump sum; instead, it is seeking a modular, annual funding requirement for what would be a phased and, crucially, value-for-money rebuild up to 2030. Out of the £3.7 billion national hospital rebuild programme, just £6 million would be needed this year for Kettering Hospital to get the project started, and just £29 million would be needed next year.

I know Her Majesty’s Treasury is currently completing a commercial strategy for all the hospital rebuilds, so as to standardise hospital redesign, to secure key commercial efficiencies in procurement and to address digital and sustainability requirements. Kettering Hospital is 100% committed to these Treasury objectives. Value for money is extremely important in delivering the hospital rebuild programme across the country, and if Kettering Hospital’s innovative and sensible approach could be matched with sufficient flexibility from the Government in applying the relevant funding streams from the Department of Health and Social Care and Her Majesty’s Treasury, it would be an exemplar hospital redevelopment that others could follow.

I urge the Government, both the Department of Health and Social Care and Her Majesty’s Treasury, to do the sensible thing and dovetail together the two presently separate funding streams for Kettering Hospital not only to optimise value for money for the taxpayer but to deliver sooner, rather than later, the urgent improvement of Kettering General Hospital that all local residents need, wish and deserve to see.