6th February 2007
John welcomes funding boost for new buildings and equipment in Rotherham's hospitals John Healey MP today welcomed an extra £263,000 funding boost for Rotherham's hospitals. This money represents a 24% increase from last year and the extra cash will be used to buy and modernise buildings, get more equipment and land needed for expanding hospitals.
Mr Healey said: “This funding will mean that patients in Rotherham will have better facilities and access to more sophisticated equipment. This will benefit the community for years to come. By 2008 we want no patients to have to wait for longer than 18 weeks from referral to treatment. This money will get us on the way to achieving that.”
“We are making huge changes to the NHS, reforming the system and providing more convenient care, closer to patients’ homes. At the same time, it’s important that we continue to provide the funding to modernise NHS buildings and equipment, for the benefit of patients in the long term as well as the short term. Investment in buildings and equipment is investment in the future of the NHS.” Decisions about how best to invest this funding will be taken by the local NHS basing their decisions on an understanding of the needs of local people.
The right decisions will help to deliver improvements needed to meet national targets and local priorities and improve the patient experience. Notes to Editors:
1. Rotherham PCT will be issuing further information on the funding announcement this week.
2. Collectively, Rotherham, Barnsley, Doncaster and Sheffield PCT's will see an increase of £983,000 in operational capital from 2006-07.
3. A full breakdown of the allocation of capital funding can be found on the Department of Health website at www.dh.gov.uk
4. Previous PCT allocations have been part of a package of NHS allocations. This change was sent out in the publication of the Operational Framework which can be found on www.dh.gov.uk Overall, there will be an extra £382 million of capital funding for Primary Care Trusts for the next financial year. This money is split in to three separate pots: · 167 million allocated directly to PCTs as operational capital to be used on the maintain and modernise their building stocks and replace equipment, representing an increase of 24% from the previous year.
· £156 million for strategic capital for PCTs to use to fund new equipment and buildings – this represents around 29% increase over 2006/07. · £60 million to modernise dental premises and equipment.
5. For further information please contact, Joanne Wilson, Research Officer to John Healey MP on: (01709) 512463
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