Facts

A Department of Health and Social Care press release following the 2020 Conservative Party Conference unveiled details of the “40 new hospitals”. The pledge was to be delivered over 2 phases of the ‘Health Infrastructure Plan’ (HIP). 

The first phase (HIP1) is to be completed by 2025. HIP1 covers the first six hospitals to be rebuilt, renovated, improved or newly built, with the six allocated funding from the initial £2.7 billion injections into the scheme. 

Of the remaining 26 projects (8 remaining undeclared), at most 15 are genuinely new hospitals, and their respective NHS trusts have collectively received only £100million in ‘seed funding’. 

There are also 8 hospitals already being worked on from earlier governments, though the current Conservative government appears to be claiming responsibility for those too. The official list of 40 “new” hospitals published by the Department of Health and Social Care can be viewed here.

Verdict

Boris Johnson was lying to the electorate with his manifesto pledge of “40 new hospitals.” It was a cynical lie he and his fellow ministers have repeated many times over.