'New hospital plan' for Torbay NHS
Plans are being drawn up to improve facilities at Torbay Hospital.
It’s one of 40 being overhauled nationwide and the plans will improve access to diagnostics and emergency care, as well as creating new care units.
Local NHS bosses have welcomed the announcement made by health secretary Matt Hancock
The funding will be used within Torbay and South Devon NHS Foundation Trust’s Health Infrastructure Plans to build hospital facilities which will 'support improved access to diagnostics, improvements to urgent and emergency care environments and separate planned care units'.
Dr Rob Dyer, Trust Deputy Chief Executive and lead for the Trust’s HIP2 project says: “We are delighted that today’s announcement gives us real confidence that our plans for redevelopment of Torbay Hospital will proceed.
"We will not just be rebuilding our general hospital. We are planning a fundamental review of the ways that we support the people of Torbay and South Devon to live healthier lives and how we provide care when they need it.
"That will include a new system for shared electronic records and the use of new technological methods of communication and treatment. The buildings will be flexible enough to support how modern medicine develops over the next 30 or so years and will help us to separate the care of people who need emergency care from those with planned or routine care which has become so difficult during the Covid-19 pandemic.
"All of these plans are being developed with our neighbouring hospital trusts in Devon and with support from Devon CCG and other partners.
"Being part of a wider Devon health and care system, the trust’s thinking will be informed by the Devon Long Term Plan, and the development of some services will be dependent on working closely and effectively with partners from the rest of Devon, including other hospitals that receive Health Infrastructure Plan investment.
"This will ensure that health and care services provided for people across the south west are delivered in the most effective and efficient way possible."
Health and Social Care Secretary Matt Hancock said: “We protected the NHS through the peak of coronavirus.
“Today we recommit to protect the NHS for years to come with the 40 new hospitals we will build over the next decade.
“I love the NHS and I will do all I can to make sure it is there for you and your family over the years to come.
“The biggest hospital-building programme in a generation will help protect the NHS long into the future.”