“Absolutely delighted,” was the reaction by Gloucester MP Richard Graham to the news that the Gloucestershire NHS Hospitals Trust has been awarded £40m of additional investment by NHS England to modernise and improve facilities at both the Gloucestershire Royal Hospital and the Cheltenham General Hospital. The MP explained that the senior management of the Trust had been working on the bid for a long time, and that he and Cheltenham MP Alex Chalk had done what they could in London to help press the case with Ministers. Richard added: “I believe the visit I arranged by Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt last November to see the Hospital, and meet the Chief Executive and Chair to hear the strength of their arguments was an important part of the journey that has led to this successful outcome.”
The new funding is for a multi-phase scheme to update both sites, under the county’s Sustainability and Transformation Plan (STP). It will provide new facilities including additional theatres and a fracture clinic, and means that Gloucestershire is one of the main beneficiaries in a national announcement of additional hospital investment. “Our Hospitals Trust deserves this new capital above all,” Richard said, “to deal with the growing demands of our ageing society.”
Gloucester’s MP was also delighted with the announcement earlier this week that Gloucestershire will be one of three STP areas to trial the new joined up Health and Social Care pilot. The new scheme will offer joined up assessments, support plans and personal finance for those who need it, cutting through bureaucracy and better serving vulnerable adults and service users. “We know,” Richard observed, “that social care and health needs are often simply different sides of the same coin for the same patient, and closer integration will be welcomed by them, their carers and families alike. If we can get this right in Gloucester it will become a national campaign.”
And both of these local announcements follow the key national announcement of a major salary increase, particularly for lower paid workers in the GRH and other hospitals. “The junior porters I worked with last summer when volunteering in the Hospital will be getting up to a 29% additional salary over the next three years in a total package worth £4.2 billion,” Richard said, “and newly qualified nurses will get an average increase of 12.6% over that period, which should please the RCN, whose reps I saw recently. This is great and well deserved news.”
Meanwhile in the same week the government has also announced this week five additional medical schools and an extra 3,000 new midwives and maternity staff, who will play a key part in the GRH’s maternity ward.
Richard said, “So this has been a great few days for the NHS, in the same week of 1944 that Second World War Conservative Health Secretary Henry Willink launched a white paper on the creation of a National Health Service. Our hospitals are getting much needed investment: our nurses and other staff much deserved additional salary; and some patients should benefit from a pilot project to bring health and social care closer together. This is all evidence that the government is absolutely focused on the changes needed to help deliver an NHS for the future, as well as one celebrating its 70th birthday this year.”
NOTE TO EDITORS
Pressing Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt last week in the House of Commons about the progress of the Glos NHS Hospitals Trust bid, Richard was told that if the bid were successful ‘it will be in no small part thanks to lobbying by him and our colleague the Honourable Member for Cheltenham’ (Alex Chalk). Read the exchange in full:
Richard Graham: What steps his Department is taking to ensure that NHS primary care infrastructure meets the demands of an ageing population.
The Secretary of State for Health and Social Care (Mr Jeremy Hunt): By 2020, investment in general practice will have risen by £2.4 billion, which is 14% in real terms, including an additional £680 million in infrastructure and premises in the last two years.
Richard Graham: The Health Secretary knows how hard staff have worked at the Gloucestershire Royal Hospital to ensure that this year—in fact, in January—it was rated 15th out of 137 hospitals for its A&E performance, despite the intensities of the winter. He knows from his recent visit that all staff, and their co-operation with health services, as well as within the A&E, have led to this, but will he also recognise and do all he can to let Public Health England know how important it is that new capital expenditure is available in order to increase beds and to serve the demographics of an ageing population?
Mr Hunt: I was pleased and privileged to see the brilliant work that staff are doing in Gloucester when I went on that visit. Deborah Lee and her team deserve enormous credit for getting a 10% improvement in performance year on year to February. A capital bid has been put in by my hon. Friend’s sustainability and transformation partnership. It is a promising bid and I hope to be able to give him news on that soon. If it is successful, it will be in no small part thanks to lobbying by him and our colleague, my hon. Friend the Member for Cheltenham (Alex Chalk).
