NEWS that the long-awaited Women and Children’s Hospital promised for Cornwall may never be built has been described as “shocking and disappointing” by St Ives Liberal Democrat MP Andrew George.

The £291-million project – part of the previous government’s New Hospital Programme (NHP) – aims to combine maternity, neonatal, paediatric and obstetric and gynaecology services in one building at the Royal Cornwall Hospital Treliske in Truro.

It was scheduled for completion by 2028 – but health secretary Wes Streeting claims that NHP has become undeliverable and unaffordable. In a letter to MPs, Mr Streeting said that the estimated costs had risen by billions, and he has requested an urgent review of NHP, with the aim of recalibrating the programme onto “a realistic, deliverable, and affordable footing”.

Mr George has now written to Mr Streeting to protest. All of Cornwall’s MPs recently met health minister Karin Smyth, when they made the delivery of the Women and Children’s Hospital their number one priority for healthcare in Cornwall.

Mr George wrote: “As well as being extremely unwelcome, your letter will cause dismay not only amongst our NHS colleagues, but also the wider community, whose hopes had been cruelly raised by the promises of the previous government. The news is both shocking and disappointing.

“Shocking, in that local ICB and acute Trust executives, though anxious, gave the six of us the impression that confirmation of the delivery of this project would be a formality.

“Disappointing though unsurprising, in that the previous Conservative government should promise these ‘new hospitals’ when they knew full-well they never budgeted the money to deliver them. We will, of course, make sure the local population is made aware of this.”

Mr Streeting has already implied that he is willing to meet Cornwall’s MPs, and Andrew is now lodging a request for a meeting as soon as possible “to ensure your department and you are aware just how critical this project is for our population”.

He told Mr Streeting: “Those parents at my (western) end of Cornwall can’t seek alternative services to the west, south or north. The geographic case alone should be sufficient to persuade the review team and you to support this vitally important project.

“The current Princess Alexandra (maternity) Suite should also be viewed by the review team in the same way as it views seven projects with Reinforced Autoclaved Aerated Concrete (RAAC), as that building has similar substantive safety risks.”