“The announcement made by the Secretary of State for Health and Social care on the investment into North Devon District Hospital is huge for North Devon and the wider community that it serves.
The initial plans put forward by our Hospital Trust for refurbishment and rebuild reflected the fact that the original proposed budget, whilst welcome, would just not provide a new hospital on the scale needed to serve our area. The Hospital Trusts proposal had my backing, but the Department of Health and Social Care believe we can do more and with an increase in budget and in utilising the national approach to standardisation, we can build faster and get better value for money allowing more funds to be spent on technology and facilities. Our scheme is still in Cohort 4 but has been upgraded to be significantly more rebuild than refurbishment.
There is work to do in the interim and there has been agreement on more urgent investment into staff accommodation and housing, something which I have relentlessly lobbied ministers for to support the recruitment and training of NHS staff. We hope to see this work start by the end of the year.
We do, of course, also need to continue to invest in the current hospitals medical facilities to ensure that there is no gap in quality care between now and the new hospitals completion.
Our Trust has shown time and time again that they can deliver these infrastructure projects on time and on budget. We are already investing in North Devon and this announcement shows that we will continue to do so. We can see the new £2 million Coronation Suite under construction, which adds to last year’s £3 million Jubilee Ward, which is already helping to reduce the backlog of elective orthopaedic surgeries. We have a new Emergency Department developed between 2019 and 2021 and also last year we saw the introduction of a new state of the art IT system, ACT, which will streamline all of our hospitals operations and interactions.
This is a massive investment for North Devon and our long term healthcare provision.”
Selaine Saxby, MP for North Devon
From Hansard:
Health Secretary, Steve Barclay, Statement to the House of Commons 25th May 2023
“Turning to Devon, Mr Speaker:
Allow me to pay tribute to my Right Honourable and Honourable Friends the Member for North Devon (Selaine Saxby) and the Member for Torridge and West Devon (Geoffrey Cox).
In addition to New Community Diagnostics Centres at North Devon the discharge hub is near completion and we will take forward discussions with the local Housing Association on key worker accommodation over the next two years as the first part of the North Devon New Hospital Build on which we will discuss the original refurbishment proposal alongside a newbuild Hospital 2.0 option.”
