Half of new hospitals promised by Boris Johnson will not be built for years
At least half of the 40 new hospitals pledged by Boris Johnson will not be built for many years, the Guardian has learned, in a move decried as “devastating” for staff and patients,Labour is to announce that many of the crumbling NHS hospitals in England that were due to be replaced by 2030 will not be completed according to the original timeframe,Wes Streeting, the health secretary, will blame the Conservatives for bequeathing Labour a huge infrastructure project that was budgeted only until this March and for which costs have soared to an estimated £30bn,The announcement, likely to be made early next week, will leave many trusts anxious that patients will continue being treated in dangerous environments and in buildings that are unfit for purpose,The heads of the affected trusts will be infuriated and the decision could prompt criticism from local MPs when a government review of the programme is published.
In September, Streeting said that 12 of the 40 projects, which included new buildings within hospitals and refurbishments, could go ahead, including seven facing the risk of imminent collapse because they contain Raac concrete.But he also ordered a review into the cost, viability and timescale of proceeding with 25 others which involve ageing and decrepit hospitals, parts of which are falling apart and increasingly disrupting care for patients.The delays follow detailed scrutiny by the Treasury, the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) and NHS England, which has included scrutiny of the money involved.The cost will now be spread over a longer period.Streeting will say the delayed redevelopments will happen eventually and give revised costs for the programme.
Many works are already well advanced and trusts say that all are desperately needed,The Treasury – which is wrestling with grim public finances – has played a key role in drastically scaling back the new hospital programme (NHP),Siva Anandaciva, the director of policy at the King’s Fund health thinktank, said: “While we need to wait for the full details of the review … pausing or delaying plans to rebuild hospitals is likely to be a false economy [as] many hospitals are already spending significant amounts of taxpayers’ funding trying to maintain sub-standard buildings,“It is absolutely clear that the knackered condition of some NHS buildings and equipment in both hospital and out-of-hospital settings is harming patients and staff and hampering attempts to improve NHS productivity,”The Liberal Democrats said abandoning longstanding plans to rebuild the 40 hospitals as expected “would be completely unacceptable”.
“Patients in these communities have been told that these hospitals will rescue their local health services.To deny them what they were promised and the better care that they deserve would be completely unacceptable,” said Helen Morgan, the party’s health and social care spokesperson.She added: “The state of this programme is a shocking indictment of the contempt that the Conservative party held for patients in these communities.But the new Labour government’s lack of ambition for them is equally shocking.“To kick these projects into the long grass and put them in the too-difficult pile displays everything wrong with ministers’ attitude to the health service.
”Hospitals whose futures have been considered by the review are regularly being hit by problems caused by the fragile state of their infrastructure as a result of repeated delays and uncertainty surrounding the programme,Sign up to First EditionOur morning email breaks down the key stories of the day, telling you what’s happening and why it mattersafter newsletter promotionEpsom and St Helier trust in Surrey had to cancel almost 300 eye operations last summer when its operating theatre ventilation system failed,Similarly, the Princess Alexandra hospital in Harlow, Essex closed two operating theatres for weeks, and cancelled 36 operations, because air handling units failed, the Health Service Journal reported,In a letter sent in September to every MP in England announcing the review, Streeting warned that the NHP was likely to be scaled back, with some projects delayed for many years,Streeting said: “Because we inherited a programme that was unfunded beyond March 2025 and a wider fiscal inheritance that was hugely challenging, we may have to consider rephasing schemes so that they can be taken forward as fiscal conditions allow.
“A structured and agreed rolling investment approach will mean proceeding with these schemes will be subject to investment decisions at future spending reviews,”The risks from crumbling hospitals is now so great that some are “outright dangerous”, Matthew Taylor, the chief executive of the NHS Confederation, has said,Some hospitals which are falling apart, such as Stepping Hill in Stockport, are not included in the NHP’s list of 40 schemes, despite having severe problems,The NHS’s lack of capital funding to repair and rebuild facilities that are beyond the end of their natural life was illustrated last week when Barking and Havering NHS trust in Essex put up posters in Queen’s hospital in Romford asking patients to write to their local MPs – one of whom is Streeting – asking them to support its effort to raise £35m to extend its A&E,It is so overcrowded that it sometimes has to cope with double the 350 patients a day it was built to accommodate.
It is also not in the new hospital programme.A DHSC spokespersono said: “We will publish the outcome of the NHP review shortly, but we are committed to delivering all of the hospital projects.“The new hospital programme we inherited was undeliverable, with the funding due to run out in March 2025.We are working up a timeline that is affordable and honest, and will announce the outcome of the review in due course.”
Can Donald Trump circumvent a TikTok ban?
As the app is on the brink of being expelled, the president-elect has been working to make good on his pledge to save itIn the run-up to the election, Donald Trump made a plea to his followers. “FOR ALL THOSE THAT WANT TO SAVE TIK TOK IN AMERICA, VOTE TRUMP!” he posted to his Truth Social account in September. Since then, he’s been working to make good on that pledge.He hosted TikTok’s CEO, Shou Chew, at his Mar-a-Lago estate in December, implored the US supreme court to delay a TikTok ban and he’s now reportedly considering an executive order to postpone the app’s disappearance. Chew is slated to join Trump at his inauguration in what appears to be a show of solidarity with the embattled executive
Russian hackers target WhatsApp accounts of ministers worldwide
Russian state-linked hackers have targeted the WhatsApp accounts of government ministers and officials around the world with emails inviting them to join user groups on the messaging app.The WhatsApp tactic marks a new approach by a hacking unit called Star Blizzard. Britain’s National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) has linked Star Blizzard to Russia’s domestic spy agency, the FSB, and has accused it of seeking to “undermine trust in politics in the UK and likeminded states”.According to a blogpost by Microsoft, victims receive an email from an attacker impersonating a US government official, enticing the recipient to click on a QR code that gives the attacker access to their WhatsApp account. The code, instead of giving access to a WhatsApp group, connects an account to a linked device or the WhatsApp Web portal
Apple suspends AI-generated news alert service after BBC complaint
Apple is suspending an artificial intelligence feature that made inaccurate summaries of news headlines.The tech company received a complaint from the BBC after the AI-generated service issued a news alert branded with the corporation’s logo falsely telling some iPhone users that Luigi Mangione, who is accused of killing the UnitedHealthcare chief executive, Brian Thompson, had shot himself.Other false notices that carried the BBC logo included one claiming Luke Littler had won the PDC World Darts final before playing in it and another that the tennis player Rafael Nadal had “come out” as gay.Apple said in a statement that the feature would be suspended as part of its next software update, due imminently. Other news organisations were affected by the errors, with a summary of New York Times alerts wrongly claiming that Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, had been arrested
UK TikTokers say goodbye to US followers as ban looms: ‘It’s a really beautiful community’
If TikTok disappears from the US, it won’t just be its 170 million American users who will lose out.British TikTokers and business owners have told the Guardian they will also lose a sizeable chunk of their audiences after a ban. The video app has become a key gateway to Americans for the UK’s online video creators, who make a living from accruing views and making sponsored content deals. With the ban scheduled to take effect on Sunday, a US-sized hole will appear in the global userbase.“In English-speaking markets, a lot of creators have sizeable US audiences that follow them,” says Thomas Walters, chief executive of Billion Dollar Boy, a UK-based advertising agency that pairs blue-chip advertisers with creators and influencers
Elon Musk knows little about UK and Germany and should not interfere – poll
Most people in the UK and Germany consider Elon Musk’s efforts to influence their national politics unacceptable and believe the US tech magnate does not know much about either country or the issues they face, a poll has shown.The survey, by YouGov, follows a spate of hostile statements by the billionaire owner of Tesla, SpaceX and the social media platform X attacking the British prime minister, Keir Starmer, the German chancellor, Olaf Scholz, and their respective governments.The poll, of more than 2,200 people in each country, also found that majorities of 54% in both countries thought it was “not important” for their governments to cultivate a good relationship with Musk, and about 50% thought he was best ignored.The survey found that only 13% of respondents in both countries saw Musk’s interventions in their politics as acceptable, with 69% in the UK and 73% in Germany saying the opposite. Most also thought his meddling in US politics was unacceptable
Donald Trump reportedly weighing up TikTok ban delay
Donald Trump is considering suspending a TikTok ban in the US with an executive order when he enters the White House on 20 January, according to a report.The president-elect is exploring an executive order that would postpone enforcement of a sale-or-ban law due to come into force on 19 January, said the Washington Post. The report added, however, that Trump’s legal grounds for suspending a law passed by Congress are questionable.Under the terms of the law, the short video app’s US operation must be sold by its Chinese owners by Sunday. If a sale does not occur, new users will not be able to download TikTok from app stores
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