King's Lynn: Council urges Matt Hancock to fast-track hospital rebuild

Demands to urgently rebuild a hospital propped up with 194 supports have had the unanimous backing of councillors.

The roof of the Queen Elizabeth Hospital (QEH) in King's Lynn, Norfolk, poses a "direct risk to the life and safety of patients", board papers said.

The county council heard the building had major structural issues.

It carried a motion to urge Health Secretary Matt Hancock to "approve a new hospital and to fast-track its build and design."

Alexandra Kemp, an independent councillor who proposed the motion, said: "I'm very pleased for the sake of the QE, for the staff, patients and the third of a million who use the hospital that the council has united and got behind this is very important issue.

"This is one of the key issues for Norfolk - this is the first motion for the new term of office and, in many respects, it's the most important."

She said the hospital recently had to close a critical care unit for two weeks while props were installed.

"On top of the all operational challenges of Covid-19, this is heartbreaking for patients and staff," she added.

In a BBC Look East interview broadcast earlier this month, Mr Hancock said he was "looking very closely" at the case for rebuilding the 40-year-old hospital.

"We are making the assessment across the country which are the eight most pressing schemes, and [will] then come to a conclusion in the months ahead," he said.

The hospital was among many built in the 1960s and 70s that now had "challenges" as they came to the end of their life, he added.

"This is hundreds of millions of pounds to build a new hospital, so it's something that we need to get right, but it's something that's very much on my agenda," he told the BBC.

The QEH was not selected as one of 40 hospitals included in a £3.7bn building package announced by the government in October.

In April, the government said the hospital had been given "over £20m to directly address the most immediate issues".

In a letter, leaked to the BBC at the time, its deputy chief executive Laura Skaife-Knight said "more than short-term fixes are needed".

A risk register within a board meeting agenda last month assessed the state of the building.

It said: "There is a direct risk of life and safety to patients, visitors and staff of the trust due to the potential of catastrophic failure of the roof structure due to structural deficiencies."

It said this was because the pre-cast concrete construction of the building was 40 years old, despite only being built to last 25 years, and rated the risk as "very high/extreme".

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