Recommendation 1
Announcements about major capital programmes extending over more than one spending review period should fully reflect known uncertainties so that everyone can be clear about the nature of the commitments being made.
Source · National Audit Office
Progress with the New Hospital Programme
Our report found that the New Hospital Programme (NHP) has experienced delays and is expected to deliver 32 of the intended target of 40 new hospitals by 2030.
Published: 17 Jul 2023
Recommendations: 7
Type: Value for Money
NAO confirmed: 6
Department: Department of Health and Social Care
Recommendations
Recommendation 2
When it makes decisions about where to build new hospitals in future, DHSC should appraise options in a transparent way using the best evidence available and should keep full records of why it selects specific projects.
Recommendation 3
Senior officials and clinicians in DHSC and NHS England should urgently re-examine the assumptions underpinning the minimum viable product (MVP) version of NHP?s Hospital 2.0 design. In particular: 1) they should identify and address any proposals that are likely to result in future hospitals being too small; 2) they should set up a process for reviewing MVP hospitals? progress against the NHS?s Net Zero Carbon Building Standard; and 3) they should decide whether they are prepared and can afford to make happen in practice assumptions on which MVP relies, but which are outside NHP?s control, for instance shifts in models of care.
Recommendation 4
DHSC should urgently review whether NHP has struck the right balance in its future plans for the division of work between consultancy services and in-house staff.
Recommendation 5
NHP should increase its focus on completing the planning process for cohort 2 schemes and getting as many as possible into construction before the end of 2024 to prevent further bunching of schemes in the second half of the 2020s.
Recommendation 6
NHP should examine and reflect on lessons from the opening and early operation of The Grange University Hospital in Wales, which was built using modern methods of construction.
Recommendation 7
In its third programme business case, NHP should quantify the potential costs of its commercial approach, including any premium from attempting to construct a large number of hospitals at once as well as any costs to government of backing an increase in the UK?s capacity to manufacture building components offsite.