POLITICAL campaigners in Cornwall are asking the government: “Where’s our hospital?”

Liberal Democrats in the Duchy are calling on Health Secretary Wes Streeting to confirm plans for the long-promised new Women and Children’s Hospital at Treliske, Truro.

Last year Mr Streeting admitted the £291-million unit within the grounds of the Royal Cornwall Hospital was in jeopardy. The much-mooted project was scheduled for completion by 2028 and is due to combine maternity, neonatal, paediatric, obstetric and gynaecology services into one building, which would serve as the new main entrance for the hospital.

In a letter to MPs last September, Mr Streeting said: “This government is fully committed to an NHS estate that is fit for the future. However, from our first weeks in office, it was clear that the New Hospital Programme (NHP) was undeliverable, unaffordable and estimated costs had risen by billions.”

As a result, the Truro hospital was one of 25 projects placed under review. However, the Women and Children’s Unit could now back on the agenda, though may be built later than first planned.

Truro and Falmouth Liberal Democrat parliamentary spokesperson Ruth Gripper said: “Our message to the Health Secretary is: end the uncertainty and give this project the green light.

“Staff have told me how important this project is. The building is old and tired and in desperate need of upgrading. The longer it gets delayed, the more it is costing our local NHS.”

A spokesperson for the Royal Cornwall Hospitals NHS Trust said: “Like all new hospitals in the national New Hospital Programme, we await the announcement on the outcome of the government review, which we believe will be mid-January.”

Jayne Kirkham, Labour MP for Truro and Falmouth, said she had received confirmation this week from the Health Secretary that he is committed to the unit.

“I have actively and intently been pressing him at every opportunity to confirm that the project will proceed in a timely way,” she said. “There may be rephasing of the funding, but I have been assured it is very much a project that this government is committed to.

“We have a spending review to go through, but after that we should be looking at announcing a timeframe, which I will push for just as hard.”

Ms Kirkham described the Women and Children’s Unit as “vital for Cornwall”, adding: “Mothers would be able to stay with their premature babies at the hospital. That is currently very difficult as there isn’t the space. Operations people would previously have had to travel out of county for could be done on site.”

Ms Kirkham continued: “Even when I had my baby there 19 years ago, men were drilling at the ceiling in the four-bed maternity ward where I was trying to sleep with my newborn son. Cornwall deserves better and has done for years.

“Women should not be wheeled between buildings in emergencies or taken miles away for operations that could be performed in Cornwall. Our maternity unit staff are top class.”