Facts

Six weeks ahead of the Uxbridge by-election, former Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, took to twitter to “share the great news about funding for the new Hillingdon Hospital”

The government has plans to build a new “state-of the-art building” adjacent to the existing Hillingdon hospital. The two buildings, alongside a new long-term care home, will form a ‘hub’. 

The existing Hillingdon hospital has its origins in the 19th century as a Workhouse for the Uxbridge Poor Union.  In 1930 Middlesex County Council took over the workhouse and changed the name to Hillingdon County Hospital. 

Verdicts

Boris Johnson continues to twist the truth even out of power. His 2019 Conservative manifesto contained the pledge to build 40 new hospitals, one repeated many times by Johnson and his ministers, in parliament and elsewhere. As this website repeatedly exposed, Johnson’s original pledge of 40 new hospitals was cynical and misleading. The Johnson government quickly  found a way of watering down the pledge to build 40 new hospitals by declaring that additional facilities counted as a “new hospital”.

Mr Johnson’s statement about Hillingdon hospital is a very good example of this kind of distortion. The Government does have plans to build a “state of the art building” in Hillingdon, but the new building  is adjacent to the existing Hillingdon hospital and it is stretching the truth to call it a “new” hospital.

We sent a letter to Johnson’s personal and office address offering him the chance to respond. The letter was received (and signed for) by both, but no reply.