Local health campaigners have today (Thursday 16th January 2025) welcomed news Torbay Hospital’s Emergency Department will benefit from a £14.2million capital investment but called for the Labour Government to stop dithering on and deliver the major rebuild programme worth over £350m.
The investment announced today will increase capacity and reduce the time people are waiting for urgent and emergency care. The Hospital currently does not have enough space in its existing Emergency Department (A&E) to triage and treat people in the way it would wish to, with the existing waiting area being both small and often crowded.
The latest investment announcement follows the completion of a series of major investments at Torbay Hospital over recent years. These include a £15m project to build new Operating Theatres, a £2.8m investment in a new Radiotherapy Suite currently underway and the opening of Torbay Hospital’s new £15.7m Acute Medical Unit in December 2022.
Yet in welcoming this announcement local health campaigners have also urged the Government to stop delaying and decide on its “review” of plans to rebuild the main hospital buildings, which were part of the previous Conservative Government’s new hospitals programme.
At the heart of the new hospital programme plan for Torbay Hospital is a new build ward block to replace the original Hospital buildings which date from the 1920s. The eventual cost of the project is expected to be more than £350m, making it the largest single project for South Devon’s NHS since the creation of the NHS back in 1948. Construction work was expected to finish in 2030, with the new hospital buildings due to open in 2031, yet the review and delays since the election mean these dates are no longer expected to be met.
Campaigner and former Torbay MP Kevin Foster, who has already collected over 1,000 signatures on a petition demanding the new Government honours the plan to rebuild the hospital said: “This investment into renewing the Emergency Department at Torbay Hospital is very welcome and will make a difference, alongside the investments secured in recent years.”
“Yet this news cannot be seen as an alternative to the Government making its mind up on it's “review” of the major rebuild of Torbay Hospital’s buildings. Before the General Election there had been cross-party support for the delivery of this project and suggestions a change of government would threaten it were dismissed by those arguing for one, including the Liberal Democrats.
“Since July it has already been delayed, now we cannot allow it to be cancelled. Labour Ministers must honour the pledges made and sign off on this project without delay.”
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