Government approval for KGH's £46m Urgent Care Hub | Building a better KGH

Building a better KGH

We are embarking on an ambitious journey to transform our facilities and services at Kettering General Hospital, ensuring we meet the growing healthcare needs of Northamptonshire for generations to come.  The delays with the New Hospital Programme have meant we have paused some of our enabling works. While we await further details, we remain steadfast in our commitment to progress.

2025 is a big year for our hospital!

Work has started on our new Energy Centre which will be completed by 2027. Driving forward the transformation that our hospital needs along with moving ahead on our plans to address the RAAC concrete in our Women’s and Children's unit with an extension to Rockingham Wing, which will provide a  much better environment for our patients. It will be bright and spacious. This also gives us the opportunity to address the accommodation issues we have had following the discovery of reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete (RAAC) in 2024.

Community Diagnostic Centres (CDC's)  

Designed to increase the  capacity of diagnostic testing.  Providing community-based access to diagnostic services, leaving hospital site diagnostics additional capacity to manage emergency and non-elective inpatient workload.  

Each Community Diagnostic Centre will be a free standing multi-diagnostic facility, located away from main acute hospital facilities. There is a national target to deliver 44 Community Diagnostic Centre's across England; of which 8 of these will be across the Midlands.  

In Northamptonshire, we are currently working on two new Community Diagnostic Centre's  sites. One in Kings Heath, Northampton that opened to patients in the summer of 2024 and the second in Corby, which is due to open in 2025.

Find out more about the Community Diagnostic Centre's (CDC's)

Energy Centre 

Building has already started on  a state-of-the-art  green Energy Centre  which has been designed to support the hospital's existing infrastructure more efficiently and sustainably, while also accommodating future developments.

Find out more about the Energy Centre

Solar Panels

More than 1,000 rooftop solar PV (photovoltaic) panels will be fitted around the estate. These will be funded as part of a national £100 million package from the new publicly owned energy company Great British Energy. This will help to reduce yearly energy bills by around £150,000 and will add to the hospital’s overall energy sustainability. 

Find out more about the installation of Solar Panels.   

Rockingham Wing Extension

Over the past year we have been dealing with the consequences of discovering RAAC in the roof of Rockingham Wing.  We have had to relocate services from the building and delay plans to upgrade our Special Care Baby Unit and Bereavement Suite.

We have received funding to construct an extension to the building this will help address our accommodation issues.

Find out more about the Rockingham Wing Extension.

Artist impression main entrance approach April 2022

New Hospital Programme 

While we understand the New Hospitals Programme must be affordable, we are disappointed the governments decision on 20 January 2025 to delay the next steps in our development programme until 2029/2030. This delay poses a significant challenge to our plans and the delivery of much-needed improvements for the patients and communities we serve. 

Find out more about the New Hospital Programme

 

Proposed Multi-Storey Car Park

Plans include the development of a seven-storey, 662-space multi-storey car park to replace spaces lost for future redevelopment, ensuring easy and accessible parking for patients, visitors, and staff.    

Government approval for KGH's £46m Urgent Care Hub

Kettering General Hospital’s bid for a £46m Urgent Care Hub for North Northamptonshire has been approved by the Government.

The announcement was made by Health Minister Edward Argar MP today (Wednesday October 23, 2019) in Westminster Hall in the Houses of Parliament.

He made the announcement in response to issues raised by Kettering MP Philip Hollobone in a debate on health and social care this morning.

Mr Hollobone set out the case for an Urgent Care Hub, described the campaign championed, by himself, and supported by Wellingborough MP, Peter Bone, and Corby MP, Tom Pursglove, since 2012 to get approval for the build, and highlighted the very urgent need for it to meet growing demand in North Northamptonshire.

Mr Argar described his recent visit to Kettering General Hospital and his tour of the A&E department and said how much he admired the work done by staff and the way they have dealt with the difficulties of rising demand.

He also cited the amazing work done every day by our staff and the compelling case set out by the KGH team for a new development.

He said: “I am delighted to inform the House and Honourable Members that in the next capital review £46m for the Urgent Care Hub has been approved by Her Majesty’s Government.”

He then described how his officials, and NHS England, would be in touch with the Trust to enable work to on the project to proceed as swiftly as possible.

Kettering General Hospital’s Chief Executive, Simon Weldon, said: “This is fantastic news for the people of North Northamptonshire and for the staff at our hospital.

“Building an Urgent Care Hub is exactly what we need to address the significant growing demand for emergency care in an area that is one of the fastest growing in England in terms of population and housing.

“Our existing A&E department was designed for 40,000 people 25 years ago and this year is set to see 100,000.

“As a result it is often over crowded leading to clinical, patient flow and privacy and dignity issues and a poor working environment for staff.

“The Urgent Care Hub is designed to address all of that and enable local people to access the appropriate services for their needs in one key location.”

The Urgent Care Hub concept for North Northamptonshire was developed by Kettering General Hospital in close cooperation with its health and social care partners.

It will enable local people to access GP, mental health and A&E services appropriately all under one roof ensuring people see the right clinician, in the right place, first time.

Kettering General Hospital’s Chief Operating Officer, Jo Fawcus, said: “When it is complete this development will have enormous benefits for local people and for hospital staff.

“It will be a high quality purpose-built unit which can help us improve patient flow and address all of our privacy, dignity concerns and space issues.

“It will support appropriate care for patients with people being directed to the right clinicians for their need whether that be GPs, mental health professionals or specialist hospital staff.

“It will be a shining example of healthcare professionals – from many different disciplines – working together under one roof to provide the right care for our patients in a quick and appropriate way.”

On October 9, 2019, the Trust received a letter from Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, Matt Hancock, confirming that it will receive a share of £100 million of Government Health Infrastructure Plan (HIP2) seed funding.

The Urgent Care Hub is the first priority stage of a full redevelopment of the hospital that will be set out in a business case using the HIP2 seed funding.

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