Copeland’s MP has welcomed a major boost in funding which will help modernise and transform care for patients at West Cumberland Hospital.
Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt and NHS England boss Simon Stevens have today (Wednesday July 19) announced £325m of capital investment for local projects.
West Cumberland Hospital will receive between £30m - £50m extra capital investment to refurbish or rebuild parts of the hospital estate to bring it up to date and improve the experience of both patients and staff who work there.
Trudy Harrison MP, said: “Securing this major investment for West Cumberland Hospital is fantastic news and will mean patients get an even better service from the NHS.
“The funding will help to deliver faster diagnosis for conditions including cancer, easier access to mental health services, expansions of A&E departments, shorter waiting times for operations, and more services in GP surgeries. There has been huge progress in improving patient care and this funding will help to secure the highest quality, most compassionate patient care anywhere in the world.”
£10m - £30m of new funding will be invested across Lancashire and South Cumbria to modernise mental health facilities and improve A&E facilities at two of the area’s hospitals. £5m - £10m of the new capital funding has been earmarked to be used to modernise mental health inpatient services.
Delivering the announcement at the Kings Fund event, Health Secretary, Jeremy Hunt, said: “This funding will support strong local plans to help the NHS modernise and transform care for patients. A measure of success of these transformation partnerships is that people can see and feel improvements being made in their local area – there are already excellent examples of this across the country and this money will allow them to go further and faster.”
A brand new cancer centre, complete with new equipment at Cumberland Infirmary in Carlisle will help improve access to chemo and radiotherapy treatment.
The new oncology centre will mean 95 per cent of Cumbria patients with suspected cancer will now get a diagnosis within four weeks and, by improving access both one year and five year cancer survival rates are set to increase.
Stephen Eames, lead for the West, North and East Cumbria Health and Care Partnership (STP) said: “This is fantastic news for patients in Cumbria. This significant investment in our local cancer services – in partnership with the excellent specialist services at Newcastle hospitals – means we can provide more modern cancer treatment, from state of the art facilities, which will benefit people living across north Cumbria.”