'We need a new hospital': Health boss issues stark warning over ageing hospital building
Hospital boss say it would cost more to repair and expand existing building than to build a new state-of-the-art site
The boss of a West Yorkshire hospital has told councillors: “We need a new hospital, plain and simple.”
Professor Mel Pickup, Chief Executive Officer of the Bradford Teaching Hospital Foundation Trust, made the claim at a meeting on Thursday, when she pointed out that much of Bradford Royal Infirmary was built a century ago.
She told members of Bradford Council’s Health and Social Care Scrutiny Committee that it would likely cost more to repair, expand and upgrade the existing hospital building than it would to build a new, state-of-the art hospital.
The call was made several years after BRI was overlooked in the Government’s “New Hospital Programme” – a scheme that would have seen the hospital and St Luke’s both flattened and re-built on a single site.
The Scrutiny Committee were discussing the Baroness Amos review into maternity care, which was published earlier this year.
Bradford Royal Infirmary was one of the hospitals that the review looked at.
The review found that the maternity system in England is no longer fit to consistently deliver high-quality, compassionate care to every woman and family, and requires urgent reform.
Numerous concerns were raised about the experience of women experiencing maternity care in BRI.
At the meeting Ms Pickup apologised over the findings, and the Amos report was discussed for over two hours by Councillors from across the political spectrum.
One of the issues was that the ageing inner city hospital was not capable of delivering everything expected of a modern health facility.
Ms Pickup said: “We need a new hospital in Bradford, plain and simple.
“BRI is one of the older hospitals in Yorkshire. In was built, in a large part, nearly 100 years ago, and it has expanded beyond the capability of providing modern health care.
“Anyone who has used the A&E will recognise this.
“We need a new hospital.”
When the funding bid for a new build to replace BRI was first proposed, Ms Pickup said: “We want to create modern health and care facilities that support our people and our citizens by securing safe, efficient and fit for purpose hospitals and healthcare for generations to come.
“We are excited by the opportunity that could be presented to us to really transform the way care is provided for our patients and their families.”
In 2023 it was announced that while Airedale Hospital would get funding for a rebuild, the BRI replacement would not.