Trust awarded £500,000 to find new hospital site

The news was welcomed by MPs and hospital bosses

MPs and hospital bosses have welcomed central government funding for an NHS trust to select a site for a new hospital.

Royal Berkshire NHS Foundation Trust has received £500,000 from the government and is expected to choose a site by March 2026.

Chief executive Steve McManus said the funding would allow them to move onto "the next stage" of plans to rebuild the Royal Berkshire Hospital (RBH).

In January, Health Secretary Wes Streeting said construction would not begin until 2037 at the earliest.

The hospital was due to be rebuilt under the previous government's new hospitals programme, but did not receive funding.

Streeting said the new RBH would be included in the third wave of building works, with construction starting between 2037 and 2039.

In June, the hospital was awarded a share of a £4.4m grant to repair and refurbish the current site in the interim, but Liberal Democrat MP for Wokingham Clive Jones said the cash would "not touch the sides".

Some parts of the Royal Berkshire Hospital are more than 175 years old

Today's grant was welcomed by Mr McManus as "significant".

"We're getting around half a million pounds, which is the amount we requested and that allows us now to progress to the next stage," he said.

"We were concerned that our development of the new hospital had stalled.

"But the support of this half a million from the national programme allows us to go to the next step over the next six months."

A joint statement from Reading's Labour MPs said they were "delighted".

"This is the next step in delivering a fully-funded state-of-the-art hospital for Reading," said Reading West's Olivia Bailey, Earley and Woodley's Yuan Yang, and Reading Central's Matt Rodda.

"We will continue to work with the trust and press ministers to see it built as soon as possible."