£101m investment in Gloucester and Cheltenham hospitals

More than £100m will be invested in upgrading the hospitals in Gloucester and Cheltenham. 

Gloucestershire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust will spend the funding on modernising buildings, transforming services and providing better patient care at Cheltenham General and Gloucestershire Royal Hospitals. 

The money is being spent to deliver ground-breaking services and establishing centres of excellence across a range of specialities. 

Health bosses want to replicate the success of cancer care and the oncology centre at Cheltenham which has a renowned reputation locally, regionally and nationally. 

The cash injection will be used to construct new buildings, provide cutting edge technology, develop pioneering clinical practice, digital transformation and green initiatives.  

While the spend marks a major investment in hospital services over the next two years the leadership team is prioritising extra funding sources. 

Clinicians say the investment will provide the next generation of care for the county’s patients and will improve patients’ outcome, help reduce waiting times, ensure fewer operations are cancelled and enable more patients to receive the right care at the right time in the right place. 

Hospital bosses also hope it will enhance safe staffing levels by attracting and retaining the very best staff. 

A significant proportion of the funding, £39.5m, has been awarded by NHS England and the Department of Health and Social Care.  

It has been allocated under the Gloucestershire Sustainability and Transformation Partnership (STP) and is in recognition of the strong partnership working between health, social care and the voluntary sector in the county.  

The Hospitals Trust has invested an additional £5m from its capital allocation to realise the full potential of this building works programme. 

Work has already started on establishing compounds across both sites ready for the main building works programme which began in August.

Deborah Lee, Chief Executive, said: “This investment really does give us an opportunity to provide the next generation of care at Cheltenham General and Gloucestershire Royal Hospitals in line with our vision for centres of excellence. 

“At the heart of our ambition is to establish ground-breaking specialist services across both our hospitals.  

“At Cheltenham there will be a greater focus on planned care modelled on the outstanding service already provided by our cancer services and in particular The Oncology Department.  

“At Gloucester we will establish specialist services with a greater focus on urgent and emergency care. 

“The opportunities for our staff and patients in delivering this vision are considerable with many specialist services rivalling and exceeding those found only in university hospitals in big metropolitan cities.” 

The construction work on the £44.5m programme will start in August and is due to be completed in summer 2023.  

Other improvement works totalling £55.5m across both sites are running in parallel. 

By Carmelo Garcia – Local Democracy Reporter