At least £8 million of public money had already been spent on a major Nottingham hospital redevelopment programme before the Government delayed it to 2037.
The majority of the spending is now effectively wasted – because the planning work done will be out of date by the time the project starts again.
Nottingham University Hospitals Trust’s (NUH) board met today (13 March) to examine its operational performance and updates.
Members discussed the amount NUH has spent to date on planning the hospital redevelopment programme, named ‘Tomorrow’s NUH’.
The scheme aimed to greatly expand and modernise facilities across both the Queen’s Medical Centre and Nottingham City Hospital.
The project is part of the Government’s New Hospital Programme (NHP), which is investing in buildings and equipment across the NHS to revitalise healthcare.
However, in January, Wes Streeting, the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, said construction would be delayed until at least 2037 – and possibly as late as 2039 – following a review.
The NHP funding to support the programme, which started in 2020, will stop at the end of March 2025, with no more funding to be provided to develop the scheme until after 2030.
Board papers state: “The majority of work undertaken will be out of date and have been superseded by the time the NHP funding recommences in 2030.
“A further consequence of the revised timeline for the Tomorrow’s NUH Programme is that the majority of the expenditure to date will need to be impaired within the 2024/25 year-end accounts for the Trust.”
Craig Wilcockson, Non-Executive Director, asked: “The board is really disappointed in terms of delays worsening the impact, particularly on patients. Do we know what the quantum of the impairment might be?”
Paul Matthews, Chief Financial Officer, said “£8 million potentially” had been spent on the programme since it started – money provided by the New Hospitals Programme.
He added: “There’s a significant amount of time between now and when we dust it off and start again – which will probably necessitate redoing everything. Clearly, it’s a huge disappointment for the organisation.”
Tim Guyler, Director of Strategy and Integration, said: “This year, we’ve talked about the fact that we need to refresh our strategy. One of the things we’re making sure we do is take all of the good work from Tomorrow’s NUH that has happened, which can inform that.
“We want to answer the question, ‘What would our next 10-year journey look like?’ Tomorrow’s NUH progress itself is being shut down, but a lot of the work still reflects what we want to achieve as an organisation. We need to ask the question: how can we use it?”
Mr Matthews said: “The spend of £8 million – we’ve clearly got a huge amount of material. We’re not losing the material… [we’re thinking about] how to shape it in what you described.”
The money has been used to develop the future clinical model for the hospitals and to prepare other business cases to enable the works that will look at preparing the space for the main Tomorrow’s NUH developments.
Alternative sources of funding will be needed to continue these works, and the £8 million will be written off at the end of the current financial year so its current value to NUH is not overstated on balance sheets.
NUH already has a maintenance backlog of £439 million, referring to needed works across its buildings.
Mark Chivers, Non-Executive Director, said: “My strong inclination is that the way into the backlog maintenance conversation is through the productivity lens.
“We should be gathering information around the impact on the hospital from the poor condition of the estate. Rather than going back for £200 million next year and £200 million the year after, we need to demonstrate this is the impact on services.”
Board Chair Nick Carver said: “Needs like this can’t be ignored for 20 years.”
