New £2.3bn hospital 'ambitious but necessary'

Plans for a new £2.3bn acute hospital for part of Cambridgeshire seeing rapid population growth have been described as ambitious but necessary.

Cambridge University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust (CUH), which operates Addenbrooke's Hospital, says that by 2040 it will need double the number of beds it currently has, and an emergency department five or six times the size.

It is already short of about 160 acute beds, and the new "radical" plans would offer more community support and would ideally see people attend hospital only for emergencies or specialist care that cannot be delivered locally.

The trust's Sian Coggle said the current NHS model "isn't really fit for the future".

Addenbrooke's has been on its site on Hills Road, Cambridge, since the 1960s, but CUH said the city's population was "set to grow by in excess of 60% by 2040 to meet the government's ambition for economic growth in this region".

Last month, the government announced £400m of investment for Cambridge to "kickstart" regional growth in "Europe's Silicon Valley".

Dr Coggle, the trust's clinical director for acute care strategy, said: "We are already short of beds for the footprint we currently have.

"If that growth continues, which is a positive for the local economy, it will be incredibly challenging for us to be able to deliver the healthcare that our population requires."

As a key part of the plans, the trust hopes to set up health centres "in each neighbourhood" for traditionally hospital-based services such as diagnostics and post-operative care.

It wants to "develop a future-proof health system that allows patients to access care in a timely and safe fashion, and in the place that's right for them at the time they're accessing it", said Dr Coggle.

She said the plans were in their early stages and significant funding was required to progress them further.

Asked whether a hospital costing £2.3bn was a pipedream, she said: "I think it is a very ambitious aim, but equally it is a very necessary aim for us to be able to provide a healthcare system that's fit for the community for the future."

Daniel Zeichner, the Labour MP for Cambridge, said that to accommodate growth, "one of the things that has to happen is payback to the local community".

"In the end, [the money for the hospital] will come from government but it will also come, I would say, from the huge amount of money that will become available through the development of these new sites and new housing," he said.

Pippa Heylings, the Liberal Democrat MP for South Cambridgeshire, said it was in the interests of the life sciences sector and the private sector to invest in the hospital, adding to government money and philanthropic support.

She said: "We can't afford not to fund this radical change in A&E and acute healthcare.

"What we have is a hospital that is struggling. It's got a deficit in the number of beds and the waiting times are just too long."

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