How many of the ‘40 new hospitals’ have been built?

Sunak was either lying when he promised 40 new hospitals by 2030, or doesn’t have the first clue what’s going on. The Conservatives have failed to build a single new hospital in the last five years.

Through our new hospital programme, we have committed to delivering 40 new hospitals by 2030. I am pleased to tell the House that six hospitals are now open to patients.

Both Labour and the Conservatives have made misleading statements about progress on the government’s promise to build 40 new hospitals by 2030.

Of the 40 schemes designated “new hospitals” in the government’s plans, one—the Dyson Cancer Centre in Bath—has been completed. It opened for patients in April 2024.

In a report last year, the National Audit Office (NAO) described the project as “a new build on existing NHS estate to provide cancer treatment facilities in a new building”. It judged that this met the government’s broad definition of a ‘new hospital’, which can include “a major new clinical building or a new wing, providing a whole clinical service, at an existing hospital”.

It is therefore not correct, by the government’s definition of a “new hospital” at least, to say that none have been built, as Mr Streeting claimed on X (formerly Twitter) and at least one Labour candidate claimed in a Facebook ad. And it would be misleading to suggest that six have been opened, as Ms Atkins appeared to on 23 May in Parliament and when asked about the 40 new hospitals on the BBC’s Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg on 2 June.

When we asked the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) about Ms Atkins’ 23 May claim, it referred us to a list of six hospitals provided in a written answer from health minister Lord Markham to a question about the 40 new hospitals announced in October 2020. 

This list included the Dyson Center, but the other five were all projects that predated the government’s commitment and are not counted towards the 40-hospital target (even though, as explained below, they were mentioned in the October 2020 announcement). 

We have written about developments in the government’s plan to build new hospitals in articles in 2022 and in 2019, which describe the situation at the time they were written. 

Politicians—especially ministers and shadow ministers—should talk clearly and accurately about government performance so that people can use true information when deciding how to vote.

What are the ‘new hospitals’?

In announcements both before and after the 2019 general election, and in its 2019 manifesto, the government promised to build at least 40 new hospitals by 2030.When it published plans to do this in October 2020, it listed 40 hospitals for which funding was confirmed but also said that eight further schemes had been invited to bid for funding “to deliver 48 hospitals by 2030”. 

Eight of the 40 hospitals announced in 2020 were already “in build” or “pending final approval”. The DHSC said later that they “should not be referred to as part of the government’s 40 new hospitals manifesto commitment”, and the NAO has also confirmed that they do not count towards the 40-hospital target.

The eight further schemes mentioned in the government’s original announcement therefore replaced the eight pre-existing schemes as far as the target of 40 was concerned. In total, including the pre-existing schemes, 48 projects were planned.

In 2023, the government said that the eight further projects would consist of five programmes to rebuild hospitals affected by reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete (RAAC) and the construction of three mental health hospitals that had been previously approved outside the programme and not counted. 

Confusingly, this means people sometimes refer to the project as a plan to build 32, 40 or even 48 new hospitals. 

What counts as a hospital? Or new?

When you look at the phrase closely, it isn’t obvious what counts as a “new hospital”. Does it have to be a new building on a new site? Does it need to be a general hospital or can it be quite specialist? Is a replacement for an existing hospital ‘new’, or isn’t it? How small can a hospital be before it turns into a ‘clinic’ or something else?

The answers to these questions are a matter of opinion, but in 2021 the DHSC clarified the definition it was using: 

• A whole new hospital site on a new site or current NHS land, either a single service [or] consolidation of services on a new site;
• A major new clinical building on an existing site or a new wing of an existing hospital, provided it contains a whole clinical service, such as maternity or children’s services;
• A major refurbishment and alteration of all but building frame or main structure, delivering a significant extension to useful life which includes major or visible changes to the external structure

When the NAO evaluated the new hospitals programme in July 2023, it determined that 11 of the 32 projects initially announced were “whole new hospitals”, and a further 20 met other elements of the DHSC’s definition.

It said the remaining project, Christchurch Hospital in Dorset, “was always a very small scheme and subsequently reduced further in scope”. In response to this, the NAO report said the government planned “to split another scheme into two (St. Ann’s Hospital in Poole and Alumhurst Road psychiatric unit in Bournemouth), counting each as a separate new hospital for the purposes of the target”.

What has been built so far?

Of the projects that were counted in the 40 new hospitals commitment, one—the Dyson Cancer Centre that we mentioned earlier—has been opened so far.

Five other projects that were mentioned in the government's 2020 announcement, but which do not count towards the 40-hospital target, have also now opened. They are:

• the Northern Centre for Cancer Care
• the Royal Liverpool Hospital
• Stage 1 of the 3Ts Hospital in Brighton
• the Northgate Hospital and Ferndene Hospital
• the Greater Manchester Major Trauma Centre

Lord Markham also said that two other projects that were not counted in the commitment are scheduled to open in the 2024/25 financial year.

In its 2023 statement, the government said: “As a result of this reprioritisation, as well as the rising cost of construction materials, up to eight schemes that were originally due to be constructed towards the end of the decade will now be completed past 2030.”

As the NAO has said, this means that the government’s current plans will not meet its commitment to build 40 new hospitals by that date.   

We contacted the Conservatives and Labour for comment but did not receive a response.