There will be new medical wards and a major refurbishment at the Conquest and a new clinical building at Bexhill, as part of government plans announced on Friday (October 2).
Also announced was a new hospital for Eastbourne, one of 40 across England.
Reacting to the news, Hastings MP Sally-Ann Hart said: “I am thrilled that the local NHS Trust that includes The Conquest hospital, has been awarded hundreds of millions of pounds as part of the Conservative Party’s election manifesto commitment to build 40 new hospitals around England.
“This funding will go towards the redevelopment and construction of the three hospitals in Hastings, Eastbourne and Bexhill.
“I want to thank all those who have worked hard to put together the business case for this funding, have campaigned to get this investment and fought to see improvements to our local health services.
“From our NHS Trust staff, to local authorities, local campaign groups and my fellow MPs. We all pulled together to ensure we got the funding our area needs to improve and enhance our local health services.
“This is a great day for Hastings and Rye and all local residents! We can now look forwards to a bright future for our hospital and local health services.”
She said, “All told this is a massive programme of improvement for our area.
“Local residents and staff can now look forwards to a bright future of high quality health care in state of the art hospitals.
“This is a fantastic result and one I hope the whole town will get behind.”
East Sussex MPs including Ms Hart, Huw Merriman (Bexhill and Battle), Caroline Ansell (Eastbourne), Nus Ghani (Wealden), and Maria Caulfield (Lewes) celebrated the news after a successful bid for more investment in the area.
Speaking after receiving the news of the new hospital in Eastbourne and the major rebuilds in Hastings and Bexhill, the MPs said: “We are absolutely delighted a significant section of our manifesto commitment, to invest in the NHS, deliver 40 new hospitals and to level up parts of the country which need more, is to be delivered here in East Sussex.
“This is an enormous financial investment for our local NHS and will give us the first class hospital buildings and equipment to mirror the treatment which the clinicians and staff deliver.
“We’d like to thank the Prime Minister, our Health Secretary, Matt Hancock and everyone at East Sussex Healthcare Trust who have worked so hard to deliver this bid. The hospital designs are inspiring and we look forward to seeing this project move from vision to reality.”
Reacting to the news, Joe Chadwick-Bell, chief executive at East Sussex Healthcare NHS Trust, said, “We are delighted to be part of the second phase of the Government’s Healthcare Infrastructure Project which will see a significant investment in Bexhill, Eastbourne and Conquest hospitals over the next 10 years.
“This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to transform the environment in which we provide care at ESHT.
“It will mean a complete redesign of our aging hospitals, taking advantage of new technologies and improvements in healthcare to ensure that we can meet the future needs of our communities.
“We have already received some funding to develop our plans and start some initial ‘enabling’ work.
“Our plans are in the early stages and we are looking forward to developing them further in partnership with local people, our patients and members of staff as part of our ‘Building for our Future’ project”.
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