- Wednesday, March 12, 2025
By: Shubham Ghosh
While Britain is at the threshold of yet another regime change since the Brexit referendum, some past promises made by the political leadership remain a distant dream for the country’s people.
According to an investigative report carried out by Sky News, the majority of 40 new hospitals that were promised by outgoing prime minister Boris Johnson are unlikely to be completed by the time of the next general election. While deadlines have been missed, including that of a new hospital in the departing premier’s own constituency, questions have also come up over the duration of the funding to make the promises a reality.
According to the Sky News report, 80 per cent of the 40 new hospitals promised by the Conservative leadership in 2019 either lack a date for completion or are unlikely to be completed by the next general polls.
The pledge for new hospitals, a key plank for Johnson’s election manifesto of 2019, promised 40 new hospitals by the end of the current decade. But as the investigation found out, the programme is under immense pressure.
Freedom of information requests made by the channel found that seven of the 40 hospitals do not have a timeline for completion while 25 are not expected to be completed until at least 2024, the year Britain goes to polls again.
The matter has not escaped the opposition’s eyes. Shadow health secretary Wes Streeting told Sky News that the new prime minister who would take charge from Johnson in early September might quietly ditch the pledge altogether.
“There’s no sign of these 40 new hospitals. The only place they seem to exist is in Boris Johnson’s imagination,” the Labour leader told Sky News.
“It’s striking that neither Rishi Sunak nor Liz Truss are talking about 40 new hospitals either because they know that they can’t be delivered, won’t be delivered.”
The government, however, has said that it is still after the mission. Health secretary Steve Barclay said they will deliver on the promise by 2030 and that they have been “working tirelessly with NHS partners on their building plans”, Sky News reported.
On the question of funding for the project, the government originally committed £3.7 billion but it was found that it would support activity till 2025 only and the treasury has not confirmed any new funding. The majority of the hospitals told Sky News that either they will not be finished till after 2025 or have not been allocated any funds.
