PRESSURE is mounting for bosses of the new Frimley Park Hospital to choose a relocation site, after the MP for Bracknell said ‘a sense of urgency appears to be missing’ from the decision-making process.

The Surrey-based hospital is set to be replaced and relocated under the previous government’s new hospitals programme. It was built with crumbling concrete, known as Raac, in the 1970s.

But plans for the new hospital – promised by 2030 – were put at risk when the Labour government announced a review of the hospitals programme to address a £22 million ‘black hole’ in its finances left by the Conservatives.

Despite concerns, Frimley NHS Foundation Health Trust told the News that plans ‘continue to progress at pace’.

Now, Peter Swallow, MP For Bracknell has suggested that NHS bosses are taking too long to propose new sites. In an interview with the News, MP Peter Swallow said: “I will say that we are still waiting for Frimley Park to identify potential sites, and it’s the tail end of 2024.

"The government can only move as fast as it is feasible, and obviously the first step in a very long process is identifying and securing somewhere.”

The Labour MP added that ‘a sense of urgency appears to be missing from the decision-making process’.

A Joint Health Overview and Scrutiny Committee, which has members from Bracknell Forest, suggested that Frimley Health needed a ‘contingency plan’.

Chairman Trefor Hogg spoke at a meeting on Friday, September 6. He said : “They need to put together a contingency plan, so that if they don’t get the decision they want, or if it doesn’t happen as soon as they want, then services to the public will continue.”

Ambitions for the new hospital were put at risk after Labour announced it would review the plan to deliver 40 new hospitals by 2030, of which only one has been delivered so far.

The Department of Health said that the commitment was ‘undeliverable and unaffordable’.

Mr Swallow said that Frimley ‘has to be at the top of their priority list’ due to being made with Raac.

He said: “There is no alternative to rebuilding Frimley Park, and I’ve made that clear. I’m confident that the case is so overwhelming that they will see that through the review.”

The MP added that he will be meeting the department of health next week, which ‘certainly won’t be the last’ time he lobbies for the new hospital.