Recommendation 18

Written evidence we received from NHS providers noted that trusts were concerned about future financial pressures as a result of operating the new hospitals.36 NHS England told us that the modelled running costs of the new buildings have shown that they are more cost effective and the Department said that it is developing a standard operating model to check that new hospitals are economically viable to run.37 However, NHS England also acknowledged that staff may find it harder initially to observe patients in single rooms. Carrying out more checks may result in extra costs in the short-term until staff are used to working in a different way, using digital information. NHS England believes that these additional costs will “level out” over time as specific issues are resolved.38 We asked the Department how it was building flexibility into the design to ensure that the hospitals could remain technologically and clinically up to date in the future. It told us that lessons learnt from the early hospitals will be used to adapt hospitals it builds later.39 Hospital capacity