James Sunderland highlights the benefits of new build, purpose-built hospitals in improving care services and asks the Health Secretary for an update on Royal Berkshire and Frimley Park hospitals.
Urgent and Emergency Care
James Sunderland (Bracknell) (Con)
9. What progress his Department has made on the delivery plan for recovering urgent and emergency care services. (904608)
The Secretary of State for Health and Social Care (Steve Barclay)
The urgent and emergency care recovery plan sets out how we will invest more than £1 billion in increasing capacity, including 800 new ambulances, an additional 5,000 core beds and a further 3,000 virtual wards, to provide more than 10,000 out-of-hospital care settings.
...
James Sunderland
Ultimately, the best way to improve urgent and emergency care services is through new build, purpose-built hospitals. Can the Secretary of State confirm where we are with the Royal Berkshire Hospital and Frimley Park?
Steve Barclay
As the House knows, I am extremely committed to modern methods of construction and modular building capacity. We are using that as a central component of our new 40 hospitals programme. My hon. Friend will know that the RAAC—reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete—hospitals are very much part of that discussion, not just at Frimley but at King’s Lynn, at Hinchingbrooke and in a whole range of other settings. He will also know that we are in a purdah period, so we are constrained in what we can say, but we will have more to say on this very shortly.