Hospital uses contingency money on paused build

The project was due for completion in 2028, but has been delayed

A hospital in Cornwall says it is using its contingency budget to keep a project to build a new Women and Children's Hospital on track.

The planned building was expected to cost £291m and was scheduled for completion by 2028 as part of the New Hospital Programme announced by the Conservative government in 2019.

The scheme at the Royal Cornwall Hospitals Trust (RCHT) in Truro is one of 25 planned new hospitals now paused following an announcement by Health Secretary Wes Streeting.

He previously said the hospital building programme had become "undeliverable" and "unaffordable".

The project was due to combine maternity, neonatal, paediatric, obstetrics and gynaecology services into one building.

The programme director said the building was at the end of its life four or five years ago

Roberta Fuller, the programme director of the Women and Children's Hospital at RCHT, said: "This building is being held together with metal bands.

"We are doing another structural survey to show how desperate the condition of this building is. It should have been end of life four or five years ago."

The RCHT has spent £15m on the project that began in 2020.

The cancer ward has been moved and there are plans to relocate the cardiac outpatients and haematology laboratory and clinics to make way for the build.

The trust said it started using money from its contingency budget in November 2024.

'No safety concerns'

The plans for the new hospital feature six new operating theatres and 120 bed or cot spaces.

It was due to be completed in 2028, but with the review due to report back in January it is unclear how long any delay would be.

Tom Smith Walker, obstetrician gynaecologist at the RCHT, reassured patients there were no concerns about safety and the hospital provided a very high level of care.

He said: "We make the very best out of the rooms and the theatre facilities that we have in order to facilitate our care.

"But obviously we would like this to be significantly better."

A Department of Health and Social Care spokesperson said: "We are committed to delivering the New Hospital Programme. The programme we inherited was years behind schedule and the funding ran out in March.

"We are working up a timeline that is fully-costed, honest, and will rebuild our NHS so it can deliver the best possible care for patients."