Experts say it is hard to know how much new money Boris Johnson’s government intends to put into the NHS

An extra £3bn to rebuild crumbling hospitals announced by Matt Hancock on the first of the Tory party conference is welcome, but not nearly enough given the state of NHS infrastructure, experts have said.

Prime minister Boris Johnson declared that 40 new hospitals would be built, but almost all the money earmarked will go to just six NHS trusts, which each have a major hospital badly in need of rebuilding and have had plans waiting for approval. A further 21 trusts will get a small amount of seed-funding to “kick-start” their plans for the end of the next decade.

Whipps Cross hospital, Epsom and St Helier trust, West Hertfordshire trust, Princess Alexandra Hospital trust, University Hospitals of Leicester trust and Leeds Teaching Hospitals trust will share £2.7bn from the Treasury, a Conservative party statement said as the party conference opened in Manchester.

“While this money is very much needed following years of underinvestment in the NHS’s crumbling infrastructure, it falls well short of the scale of the challenge,” said Anita Charlesworth, head of research and economics at the Health Foundation think tank.

“With a backlog of maintenance and repairs that amounts to more than £6bn - much of which threatens patient’s safety – and dozens of NHS trust upgrade projects that have been delayed or cancelled, the figure needed is closer to £3bn each year for the next five years.

“Such piecemeal funding makes it difficult for trusts to adequately plan their spending. What is ultimately needed is a substantial, long-term capital settlement which is allocated based on a clear assessment of the health care service’s needs.”

The six hospital trusts will be funded over the next five years to go ahead with their building plans. The health secretary says that a further 21 trusts will get £100m seed funding between them for the building works on 34 hospitals that they need – for 2025 to 2030.

Experts said it was hard to know how much new money the government really intended to put into the NHS.

“On the face of it, the various schemes being pledged by the government certainly sound like substantial investment, but these piecemeal announcements are not the same as having a proper, multi-year capital funding plan,” said Richard Murray, chief executive of the King’s Fund, the health thinktank. “The lack of clarity around how the new schemes have been selected and how the pledges fit within the Department of Health and Social Care’s overall financial settlement makes it difficult to tell how generous the government is being.”

The prime minister has already announced a tranche of funding for NHS building repairs. Soon after taking office, he said there would be £1.8bn for maintenance and improvements, of which £850mn appeared to be new money. The other £1bn was permission to trusts to increase their capital spending, which had been capped and diverted into general NHS bills for staffing and supplies during the austerity years. The beneficiaries were to be 20 projects, which included new wards, critical care and GP services.

The £3bn now announced appears to be in addition to that, and the hospital trusts that will benefit are not the same ones listed earlier.

Hancock has also announced £200m to replace cancer MRI, CT scanners and breast-screening equipment, “so that no scanner in the NHS is more than 10 years old”.

Experts say these bills will not be the end of it. Provision for staffing costs will also need to be ramped up. “As well as shoring up buildings, urgent action is needed to shore up the NHS workforce,” said Murray.

“Severe staff shortages are the biggest challenge facing the health service, with nearly 100,000 vacancies in NHS trusts. If the government really wants get the best value out of this new capital spending, it will need considering alongside a comprehensive plan to tackle staffing shortages in both the NHS and social care, future plans for public health spending and investment in social care, to help keep people well for as long as possible and out of hospital when they don’t need to be there.”