King's Lynn campaigners head to Parliament over delays to hospital funding shortlist
The Government promised the list would be published last Autumn and a final decision would come this spring
Campaigners from King's Lynn are making their way down to Parliament today - to challenge MPs over the continued delays to the 'shortlist' of funding for new hospitals.
It comes after over a year of work and prior promises from Government that the announcement would be made last Autumn and a final decision on the QEH's future would be made this spring.
Jo Rust is Secretary of the King’s Lynn and District Trades Council. She's among those heading down to Westminster.
She told us why she and others are going: "While we may not be able to influence the outcome, we do have to show them that local people, after over a year of campaigning, are still doing it.
"This issue hasn't been put to the backburner for us, we've been out there every single week".
Ms Rust says this is affecting everyone that goes into the QEH and she's not sure decision-making truly understand how bad the situation is: "They don't have to use our hospital. But I do, my family do, all the local campaigners do.
"We serve a catchment area of over 300 thousand people. We are the ones that care about our hospital because we know that if anything happens- we still have to use it.
"If you had to go to your office and work with props supporting the roof from coming down, it would not just be an inconvenience, but it would also be a real concern that at any point the props could fail or there could be another issue that arises and it really does cause low staff morale".
Why does the QEH need funding?
Hundreds of metal props are currently holding up the roof of the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in King's Lynn, due to the building's becoming unsafe over the years.
The site was only designed to last for around 30 years, when it was built back in 1980.
Board papers last year said the roof at the hospital posed a "direct risk to the life and safety of patients".
The hospital was left out of the original funding announced for 40 new hospitals by the Government, but hopes to make it into a group of a further 8 sites due to be announced this year.