PM launches NHS plan at hospital built using funding that will be halted after Brexit

Prime Minister Theresa May visiting the wards at Alder Hey Children's Hospital, Liverpool. Photograph: Charlotte Graham/Daily Telegraph/PA Wire

The children’s hospital chosen by Theresa May to launch the government’s new NHS plan was built using financing from the European Investment Bank - which will be cut-off after Brexit.

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Alder Hey Children’s Hospital is one of 18 British hospitals over the past 10 years to receive financing from the EIB, with £56 million going towards its reconstruction in 2013.

The use of the hospital as the backdrop to the government’s NHS plan appears to be at odds with their attempts to paint a rosy picture of a thriving health service after Brexit.

According to the People’s Vote campaign 18 hospitals across the UK have been built using financing from the EIB, with loans totalling £2.9 billion since the first hospital was financed in 2003, and over the past ten years, the UK health sector has received more than £1 billion in EIB loans, to build hospitals, drive innovation and help SMEs develop cures.

The campaigners have warned that Britain’s access to this money will be cut off after Brexit, with the exchequer secretary to the treasury confirming recently that Britain will no longer be a member of the EIB after Brexit, and that there is no clarity over the precise way this access to finance for UK projects will be replicated.

Prime Minister Theresa May visiting the wards at Alder Hey Children's Hospital, Liverpool. Photograph: Charlotte Graham/Daily Telegraph/PA Wire Prime Minister Theresa May visiting the wards at Alder Hey Children's Hospital, Liverpool. Photograph: Charlotte Graham/Daily Telegraph/PA Wire

Luciana Berger, from the People’s Vote campaign, said the revelations provide further proof that the government’s claims that Brexit will help the NHS are unfounded and misleading.

“It is beyond parody that the prime minister has the audacity to claim that Brexit benefits our NHS, standing in a hospital that was built using over £50 million of financing available to the UK because of our EU membership.

“Access to this funding is vital. NHS trusts across the country rely on European investment in order to build the health facilities we need. The government willingly cutting off access to this – especially with absolutely no plan for how to replicate it – amounts to a dereliction of duty.

“This is further proof that Brexit means less money for our NHS, not more. The fibs people were told during the referendum in 2016 are proven wrong every day. This is why we need a People’s Vote.”