Boris Johnson faces investigation into claims over 40 ‘new’ hospitals

[Northerner]

The government’s official spending watchdog is to launch an inquiry into Boris Johnson’s claim that 40 new hospitals will be built by 2030, as concerns grow in Whitehall that the pledge is unaffordable and has been greatly oversold to the public.

In a move that could prove hugely embarrassing for the prime minister, the independent National Audit Office (NAO) has decided to conduct a “value for money review” into the entire scheme, which was a cornerstone of the Conservative party’s 2019 general election manifesto.


The NAO has also made clear that it is concerned at how the government still maintains that it will build 40 entirely new hospitals, when in reality many will merely be extensions or refurbishments of existing ones.

In a letter to the shadow health secretary, Wes Streeting, who had raised questions about delays and the resulting rising costs of the scheme with the NAO, its top official – Gareth Davies, the comptroller and auditor general – said he was already preparing a full value for money review.

Boris Johnson faces investigation into claims over 40 ‘new’ hospitals

Trusts reveal only five wholly new hospitals planned, as Labour says the scheme ‘exists only in PM’s imagination’

www.theguardian.com

Another lie, and manifesto pledge broken If his lips are moving, he's lying. If his lips aren't moving, he's thinking up his next lie.

 

[trophywench]

They immediately stated that one of the 40 new ones was to replace City Hospital in B'ham. Well it's not new then is it, you twerps? That hospital first opened as a hospital - well, a workhouse infirmary - in 1889.

They seriously think everyone other than themselves was born without any brain cells.

 

[Sally71]

I don’t know how he does it, he’s really in a league of his own when it comes to stupidity. His lies are starting to trip him up and he still thinks he can win public opinion by just trotting out random promises without putting any thought into them at all. Does he really think anyone will believe him, the NHS is on its knees and he’s suddenly going to find enough money to build 40 brand spanking new hospitals?! Yeah right. If that money really is available why not spend it on more doctors, nurses and equipment for the existing ones...

 

[trophywench]

I'd be interested in where they will find all the new staff for these new hospitals, given the track record with the Nightingale hospitals.

....never mind the deficit of staff in the existing hospitals - rebuilding em won't alter that.

As I said - he doesn't acknowledge that your 'man on the Clapham omnibus' has working brain cells, or a memory better than a fishes, which is what he has.

 

[Bruce Stephens]

I'd like to see a similar exercise done for the lockdowns, were they value for money too? Did they protect the NHS?

What would be the alternative? Has that been modelled, and what did its modelling show (in terms of economy, deaths, etc.)?

Here's an attempt at modelling "focused protection": https://journals.plos.org/globalpublichealth/article?id=10.1371/journal.pgph.0000298

(It doesn't work well enough to protect hospitals, particularly ICUs.)

 

[nonethewiser]

Shock horror Boris telling porkies, man is disgrace to public office, love Northie's summary of him.

 

[mikeyB]

Don't forget, before Covid arrived on our shores there were already more than 4 million folk waiting for treatment by NHS England, and rising. That is due to persistent underfunding of NHS England since 2010. And it produced missed diagnoses and deaths. Meanwhile, Boris promised to build 40 new hospitals, without addressing the issue about who was going to staff them, as @Amity Island has said. That time we already had fewer hospital beds per head of population than any other west European country, and still do.

 

[Bruce Stephens]

Meanwhile, Boris promised to build 40 new hospitals, without addressing the issue about who was going to staff them, as @Amity Island has said.

Because, I suspect, none of these were ever actually "new hospitals". At the biggest, I suspect they're a new hospital replacing another one which is no longer suitable. So no more staff are actually required. (And as is now known, many of them are refurbished hospital wings and things. As someone tweeted recently, "Opened a packet of Ibuprofen. Or, in government terminology, opened a new hospital.")