New Hospital Programme

While we understand the New Hospitals Programme must be affordable, we are disappointed by the 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. 

Capital investment in infrastructure is vital to the health and wellbeing of people in Kettering. While we await further details, we remain steadfast in our commitment to progress. We will continue to build our new Energy Centre 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.

Background

In October 2019, Kettering General Hospital was invited by the Secretary of State to bid for government funding to redevelop our hospital site through the Government’s Health Infrastructure Plan.

This is a plan to build, or substantially improve, hospitals across the country and is also known as the New Hospitals Programme.

The Development Control Plan was approved by our Trust Board in November 2020 with a preferred way forward identified.   

In Autumn 2020 we worked with our staff, key stakeholders, and public and patient representatives to define the models of care that our new hospital buildings need to accommodate. We produced a short video describing our Development Control Plan and our preferred way forward that outlines the relationship between our plans and available funding.  

We have also taken account of population growth and planning assumptions so that the redevelopment can adequately meet future needs. This work has helped to inform design development and costings needed to support our funding application. In February 2021 the Trust Board approved our  Strategic Outline Case  detailing our plans and this was submitted to NHS England/Improvement in the same month.