Kettering General Hospital boss 'disappointed' at £620m rebuild delays that poses 'significant' challenge for patients

Yesterday, Secretary of State for Health Wes Streeting confirmed the £620m three-phase New Hospitals Programme project to replace the existing KGH buildings would be delayed by at least five years, but potentially by a decade.

Blaming ‘false promises’ made by the previous Conservative Government, MP for Kettering Rosie Wrighting said the new timetable was ‘honest, realistic and deliverable’.

Laura Churchward, Chief Executive of University Hospitals of Northamptonshire that manages KGH, said the delay poses a 'significant' challenge for patients and the wider community.

She said: “While we understand the New Hospitals Programme must be affordable, we are disappointed by yesterday’s decision 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 well-being 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.”

The delay to the new hospital rebuild programme was announced by Wes Streeting MP in the House of Commons on Monday (January 20).

He said: “The plan we have laid out today is honest, funded and can actually be delivered. It is a serious, credible plan to build the hospitals out NHS needs.”

Last year KGH bosses confirmed that the rebuild of KGH would not be complete by the previous Government's 2030 deadline as the funding programme remained in review.

In July 2024, Chancellor Rachel Reeves announced a ‘reset’ of the New Hospitals Programme, leaving many sites across England that were promised millions of pounds to revitalise sites effectively in limbo.

KGH will be in ‘wave two’ of the rebuild programme – with hospitals in wave zero and wave one ahead of the Kettering project.

Hospital bosses had previously been given written confirmation to continue with its planning for the main hospital rebuild scheme and for ‘early enabling works’ that will need to take place before the main section of the rebuild can start.

This includes installing new electrical infrastructure and building a new energy centre for the hospital, which is currently reliant on ‘very old’ steam-based infrastructure.