The planned rebuild of the Royal Berkshire hospital may be delayed until the late 2030s.
The RBH has been placed in the final wave of a three-wave plan that, according to Wes Streeting, the health secretary, will see construction begin between 2035 and 2039.
In a statement in the House of Commons this afternoon, the health secretary confirmed in the much touted announcement that the previous government’s new hospital programme was unachievable, and was unfunded.
Funding was given to the medical institution by the previous conservative government, to enable it to be redeveloped and relocated.
But this support has since been reviewed by Labour as it attempts to address the £22 billion hole in its finances.
MP for Wokingham Clive Jones said last year that delivering RBH would cost more than £1.2 billion.
“Parts of the building date back to 1839,” he said.
“Staff have to work in offices where the windows do not open, and they regularly have to walk around buckets that are there to catch dripping rainwater.”
Clive Jones pledged his support for the hospital during his maiden speech in Parliament in September, when he said that he ‘wouldn’t be standing here today’ if it weren’t for the RBH, where he was successfully treated for cancer in 2008, and later diagnosed for a quadruple heart bypass in 2016.
A joint statement from Reading’s MPs Matt Rodda, Yuan Yang, and Olivia Bailey, explained: “We are pleased we now have a definitive commitment and a realistic plan to deliver the world-class hospital our community deserves, but we are disappointed by the delay to its construction.
“We will continue to fight tirelessly to make the case for our promised hospital to be built as soon as possible.
“This delay is a direct consequence of the Conservative Party promising a new hospital when they knew they had no money to pay for it, and leaving a huge black hole in the public finances.
“Today the government has set out the realistic, costed plan that the Conservatives should have delivered.
“This government was elected to fix our broken NHS and we are getting on with the job. Alongside our plan for new hospitals, we are delivering millions more appointments to bring down waiting times, investing in new diagnostic scanners and surgical hubs, improving choice and convenience and ensuring everyone in Berkshire can access a family doctor.
“We will continue to work hard to ensure our local NHS provides the best possible treatment for local people.”
Wes Streeting, Labour’s Secretary of State for Health and Social Care said: “Since the election, the three Reading MPs Olivia, Matt and Yuan have used every single possibility to stop and remind me just how important a new Royal Berkshire Hospital is.
“The New Hospital Programme we inherited was unfunded and undeliverable-not a single new hospital was built in the past five years, and there was no credible plan to build forty in the next five years.
“When I walked into the Department of Health and Social Care, I was told that the funding for the New Hospitals Programme runs out in March.
“We were determined to put the programme on a firm footing, so we can build the new hospitals our NHS needs.
“Today we are setting out an honest, funded, and deliverable programme to rebuild our NHS. I am committed to delivering a new Royal Berkshire Hospital and to rebuilding our NHS.”
