Architect image showing Cambridge Children’s Hospital. Image, Hawkins\Brown and White Arkitekter

Plans to build a flagship new children’s hospital in Cambridge have moved a step forward with the announcement that the Government and NHS bosses have approved the project.

Set to be the first specialist children’s hospital for the East of England, the scheme received Outline Business Case (OBC) approval in principle in September 2023.

But the approval was subject to a capital affordability review by NHS England and the Department for Health and Social Care’s Joint Investment Committee (JIC), which took place at the end of April and has resulted in a recommendation to ministers to endorse the decision.

In doing so the committee has shown further confidence in the plans and has been reassured the trust has appropriate funding streams in place to pay for the facility.

The announcement is another important step forward for the project and means hospital chiefs can continue work to develop the Full Business Case and begin the detailed process of appointing a contractor to build the hospital.

Cambridge Children’s Hospital will be the first hospital designed to truly provide mental and physical health care under one roof.

The revolutionary model offers a national vision of the future of healthcare, based on partnerships between NHS, academia, industry, and civil society.

And, by bringing world-leading research diseases can be detected early or prevented altogether.

Our £100m of government funding was committed in 2018 under the Sustainability and Transformation Partnerships scheme and the hospital has raised more than half of its £100m target of philanthropy.

An archaeological dig is now underway and new access roads have been installed on the future plot opposite the Rosie Maternity Hospital, on the corner of Robinson Way and Dame Mary Archer Way on the Cambridge Biomedical Campus.

These works are preparing the future hospital site for full construction, expected to start later in 2025.

The Cambridge Children’s Hospital project is a partnership between Cambridge University Hospital NHS Foundation Trust (CUH), Cambridgeshire and Peterborough NHS Foundation Trust (CPFT), and the University of Cambridge.

It has been designed by White Arkitekter and Hawkins\Brown Architects.