CBC Open Forum (December 2025)

The CUH NHS Trust’s maintenance backlog increased again in 2024-25 to a total of £238 million, Including High and Significant Risk maintenance of £29 million and £105 million respectively. Will this be fully funded or will there be a  shortfall? And will its funding adversely affect other budgets?

Answer provided by Cambridge University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust:  

The Trust’s maintenance backlog is calculated through an independent survey, which assesses the condition and safety of our estate on a five‑year cycle, and is reviewed regularly by our technical teams. 

 Like many NHS trusts, we do not receive enough capital funding to clear the full £238 million backlog, and completing all works at once would be highly disruptive to clinical operations. Instead, we focus our funding on the highest‑risk issues to keep patients and staff safe. 

Because funding and delivery can’t keep pace with the age of our buildings, the overall backlog continues to grow. However, by targeting the most urgent problems first, we are able to prioritise safety and continuity of services. 

This work is funded from our capital programme and does not come from day‑to‑day patient care budgets.

CUH’s CEO Roland Sinker is starting another job in 2026.  His proposed continuing role for CUH did not mention the proposed acute hospital.  Who will be leading on this?

Answer provided by Cambridge University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust: Claire Stoneham, Chief Strategy & Transformation Officer, will continue to lead on the project as the SRO, with support from the wider CUH Executive team.

I recall Dr Sian Coggle mentioning at the previous Open Forum that CUH needed £10 million to prepare its strategic outline business case for the new acute hospital.  Has this money been forthcoming from the Government to date (eg through the Budget or the up to £400 million for Cambridge announced by HMT on 23 October)? 

Answer provided by Cambridge University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust: We have used the £3 million allocated to us by the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) in 2024 to develop our strategy and initial building plans. We are now seeking further investment to progress an outline business case. Funding is not yet secured, however we are engaging closely with the Cambridge Growth Company on the next phase of our plans, and to reinforce the importance of healthcare infrastructure for the wider Cambridge growth plans – where we know that a 5-year delay to the development would equate to lost growth of £6.5bn GVA by 2050. 

This is a long term project, but we are already starting to progress implementation of our new model of care, working closely with health and care partners across our local area.  This includes making upgrades to our urgent care centre, introducing new digital triage tools, and embedding community outreach for frailty services – to improve patient experience today.

When will there be public consultation on the emerging Acute Care Strategy before it is finalized and adopted?

The development of the strategy has included engagement with patients through a dedicated set of workshops, surveys and direct engagement activities involving our clinical leads, and facilitated by a local independent community consultancy. These sessions have helped inform our clinical model and plans to date, and ongoing engagement and co-design with our citizens and patients will continue to be crucial as we implement the strategy.   

Learning will also continue to be taken from the work already being carried out across CUH and within the local system, including the programme of creative engagement and co-production within the Cambridge Cancer Research Hospital and Cambridge Children’s Hospital projects. This approach will also align with the Trust’s overarching Patient and Public Involvement Framework.

What are the implications of Saturday’s fire in car park 1?

Answer provided by Cambridge University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust: Car Park 1 will reopened at 6pm on Friday 19 December. 
 
NCP and CUH worked hard to reopen the site as quickly as possible and, following structural engineer surveys, we are pleased that the car park is now open. This will help ease access to the site for staff, patients, and visitors. 
 
Staff members who previously parked in NCP Car Park 1 can return. We recognise that access and parking were more challenging while it was closed, and we would like to thank everyone for their support, flexibility and understanding while this work was completed.

The Trumpington Residents Association (TRA) has asked Murphy’s when the land used for supporting the adjoining Cambridge South Train Station construction to be returned to Hobson’s park, and currently the date given is June. Is this correct – can it be sooner?

CBC Ltd are not involved in that, as we do not have control of the park or the construction project.

Are there plans for expanding capacity for train station in the future if it is heavily used/demand exceeds expectations?

CBC Ltd are not aware of any such plans for future expansion, but are aware that the station is being built following modelling of demand currently and in the future.

Without smoking shelters your smoking policy will fail. We deal with a lot of antisocial behaviour, including staff swearing at residents when challenged. What are you going to do to enforce the rules?

Current plans include greater support for smoking cessation, a communications campaign and stronger powers to escalate/report to employers, but local people’s stories are important in helping us understand extent of the problem.

The Local Plan paperwork talks about “Sensitivity about integrating development with local people” – what are you going to do? How will you stop it having a negative impact? If there is development and construction, people from Queen Ediths at least want to help local people benefit through apprenticeships and jobs.

CBC Ltd is not responsible for the Campus expansion proposal in the Local Plan process, but would encourage people to respond to the consultation. CBC Ltd would be supportive of sensitive design in the epanded campus. We will support and promote any initiatives to provide employment in our local community, and are in the process of advancing our Talent programme to strengthen attraction, retention and training on Campus.

If there’s a master plan, if CUH is part of campus, are developments on campus going to take advantage of what they’ve done well through NHS builds eg local employment?

Yes, The masterplan includes the development of the existing parts of the campus. Indeed CBC supports the delivery of a masterplan which seeks the comprehensive development of the campus – old and new. We hope best practice is followed in the development of the campus.

Our experience of landowners group is that they are remarkable secret and do not come out and engage. They have refused, and said there would be consultation through local plan process, which we feel is too late. To date they have refused. This is unacceptable for us. It is disgraceful that a public body (the County Council) is refusing to engage earlier.

One of CBC Ltd’s conditions of support for campus expansion proposals is early community engagement.

I understand that as part of Phase 4 plans there is proposal for a Southern access road, is that a plan or a dream? Is it conditional?

This is in the landowner’s proposed masterplan, shown in the draft local plan documents and would be required as part of the Infrastructure Delivery Plan. We expect that its early delivery would be a requirement of the development.