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Trio of major schemes secure £37.8m backing

FundingA GROUND-BREAKING approach to submitting capital funding bids to the Targeted Investment Fund (TIF), coordinated by the APC, has proved a major success.

For the first time ever, we prioritised the bids as a whole system.

Historical boundaries were put aside and collective decision-making came to the fore, as our final submissions were agreed exclusively on the benefits to patients and the system.

We were rewarded with approval of almost £40m of investment to support these major breakthrough schemes:

  • Creation of a standalone elective hub at University Hospital Lewisham, with "green" protected capacity. Comprising two day theatres and associated accommodation, it would launch high volume, low complexity (HVLC) hubs for both Urology and ENT, to provide much-needed additional capacity which will also be used by Guy's and St Thomas' and King's (£13.8M).
  • Completion and fit-out of the Evelina London Children's Day Treatment Centre, providing dedicated day case theatres and associated accommodation for children, addressing long waits for paediatric surgery and "decompressing" theatre capacity elsewhere (£14m).
  • Completion of King's College Hospital's Critical Care Unit, offering additional bed capacity that can flex between critical care and support for elective care (£10m).

All schemes are clearly aligned with our emerging high level high volume, low complexity (HVLC), clinical and diagnostic strategy, developed during 2021, and supported by well-developed demand and capacity analysis. Each one was fully supported by our three Trusts.

We also received feedback that our submissions were among the very strongest and most compelling across the whole of London, drawing praise for having “a good clinical strategy and well-thought-out process that utilises existing facilities as well as creating a sustainable and robust new one”.

Last year, we were awarded TIF money to build an extra, state-of-the-art operating theatre and recovery suite at Orpington Hospital. Opened in April, its extra capacity is helping hundreds of patients a year from across South East London be treated more quickly - especially those waiting for joint operations, including knee and hip replacement surgery.