Delays over public consultation for new hospital for mid-Hampshire

Plans are being drawn up for a new hospital in or near Basingstoke, sparking fears that it will mean a long-term downgrading of services at the Royal Hampshire County Hospital in Winchester.

Bosses said today that "more detailed planning work" is needed before the proposals are seen by the public. The consultation had been due this summer.

Maggie MacIsaac, chief executive of Hampshire, Southampton and Isle of Wight Clinical Commissioning Group, and Alex Whitfield, chief executive of Hampshire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, in a joint statement, said: “In discussion with national and regional NHS colleagues, we have agreed together that our plans for a new hospital will be even stronger if we can incorporate newly available national planning information and recent learnings from others around the country.

Royal Hampshire County Hospital

"We also want to ensure our plans are as affordable as possible and deliver the best possible value for money. We have therefore decided to do some more detailed planning work before taking our plans out to public consultation.

“We look forward to continuing to work with partners across the Hampshire health and care system as well as regionally and nationally to bring our vision for a new hospital for Hampshire and improved health services to life for local people.”

Hampshire has been included in the second wave of the Government’s Health Infrastructure Plan announced in October 2019. It has confirmed the first £3.7 billion for 40 new hospitals that will be built by 2030 as part of the Health Infrastructure Plan’s long-term programme of investment.

In an email to stakeholders, Ms MacIsaac and Ms Whitefield, with Ruth Colburn Jackson, managing director (North & Mid Hampshire) NHS Hampshire, Southampton and Isle of Wight CCG, said: "Our plans and proposals need to be reviewed and approved by our regulators, NHS England, before we are able to take them out to public consultation.

"This is part of a robust NHS assurance process in place for any large-scale, complex change and investment programme, such as ours. In a powerful vote of confidence in the work that has been done to date we have received strong support across the key areas of focus, as well as renewed recognition of the strength of our case for change.  We would like to thank all the many colleagues who have engaged in, helped shape, and supported our work to date.

"The review did highlight that the programme would benefit from additional work on the financial case, taking account of some newly available national modelling as well as looking at some new benchmark building costs. Our national colleagues are wanting to help us further develop the capital and revenue costs of our options. This is to ensure we get the very best value for money we can, essential in a programme of this size and scope.

"This does mean that we will not be consulting with the public this summer as we had hoped to. This is disappointing, but we are convinced that the benefit of this extra work outweighs deferring our consultation. Not least due to the overwhelming expressions of support for the programme we have received from all quarters and a clear view from the national team that it is unlikely to lead to a significant delay in our overall timeframe."