Written question asked by Tony Baldry (Conservative) on Tuesday, 31 January 2006, in the House of Commons. It was due for an answer on Thursday, 2 February 2006. It was answered by Liam Byrne (Labour) on Tuesday, 14 February 2006 on behalf of the Department of Health.

Community Hospitals

Question: To ask the Secretary of State for Health pursuant to her oral statement of 30 January 2006, Official Report, columns 21–38W, (1) on health and social care services, whether Bicester will be the location of one of the new generation of community hospitals with intermediate beds;

Answer: As confirmed in the recent White Paper ‘Our health, our care, our say: a new direction for community services', the Government fully intends to fulfil their manifesto commitment to develop a new generation of modern national health service community hospitals over the next five years. To make this possible an initial capital investment of £100 million to build, rebuild, or refurbish at least 50 community hospitals has been identified.However, configuration of local service provision facilities remains a matter for primary care trusts. Paragraph 6.44 of the white paper explains that the Department will be inviting:"““interested primary care trusts, where appropriate working with local authority partners, to bid for capital support for reinvestment in the new generation of community hospitals and smaller facilities offering local, integrated health and social care services. This will provide the opportunity to create many new community hospitals, as we have done with LIFT projects, and to expand services on existing community hospital sites if more appropriate. The details of the timing and the tender process will be published in a separate document in mid-2006.””"

Secondary information

Type: Written question
Reference: 48886; 442 c2014W;442 c2014W
Session: 2005-06
Subjects: Community hospitals Health services Finance Hospital beds Bicester
Contains statistics: Yes
Link: View this Written question on www.publications.parliament.uk