This week the Health Secretary announced that work to replace the Royal Berkshire Hospital will not begin for at least a decade, and could be as late as 2039.
When I raised my concerns in this paper a few months ago that the Labour Government had essentially cancelled Conservative plans to rebuild the Royal Berkshire Hospital, Government supporters rushed to claim this wasn’t true.
It is insulting to residents to pretend that it is not an effective cancellation to delay even starting a project to a point when two elections will have taken place and a new Government might (hopefully) be in power.
Labour made a new hospital a top priority in their election campaign locally. During a debate on BBC Radio Berkshire, the now Labour MP for Earley and Woodley Yuan Yang criticised Conservatives for not moving fast enough and promised that under a Labour Government replacement of the RBH would begin in this parliament.
We now know that her party never had any intention to deliver on this pledge.
In May 2023, more than a year before the election, it was reported that Sir Keir Starmer would delay and review capital spending projects like hospital building. The Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) stated that Labour’s commitment to the previous Government’s spending plans while pledging £28 billion for ‘green investment’ meant that under Labour any additional capital spending was only going to be vaguely defined ‘green infrastructure’ projects.
In other words, Starmer and his party never had any plans to allocate additional money to hospital building. Indeed, their own policy document called Build an NHS Fit for the Future said “as a first step, before we commit to any more money, we’d make an assessment of all NHS capital projects”.
In short, it appears Labour’s plan was always to get in and then say there wasn’t enough money to proceed with the RBH and other hospitals.
When Labour came to power, they found money to hand out massive pay increases to train drivers and others costing over £9 billion. Sometimes it’s about choices and taking responsibility for the consequences of those choices.
This same message needs to be sent to the Labour Government and our local Labour MP.
A replacement for the RBH is desperately needed. By the time this Government plans to start rebuilding, parts of the current hospital will be almost two centuries old. But it is more than simply having a new building. A purpose-built hospital, fit for now and into the future, would be able to provide care for the increased numbers of patients the hospital is currently seeing. In particular the current A&E department is cramped. A new layout would mean more efficient patient flow and better triaging. Also, a new hospital would allow state of the art technology including robotics and AI to be implemented to improve patient monitoring.
The RBH Foundation Trust believes that the best option would be a brand-new, purpose-built facility and have said they are extremely disappointed following the Government’s announcement.
Local Conservatives support a new hospital. It would mean more space and the ability to deploy the best equipment and new technologies. We will continue to lobby for bringing forward this project, and I hope our local MPs will join us in this.
Cllr Pauline Jorgensen is the leader of Wokingham Conservatives
