Cambridge University Hospital has an ambitious strategy for redevelopment of the Addenbrooke’s site in the coming years, the County Council’s Health Committee has heard.

The three-stage plan includes

• short-term improvements to the Emergency Department and ‘surge centre’ capacity to address current pressures
• a new Children’s Hospital and a Cancer Research Hospital by 2025-26, for which the Government has already committed some of the funding
• further developments from 2025.

We were told that the UK’s cancer outcomes were comparing poorly with other countries, and that part of this was down to the need for people to get medical help sooner. One-third of people with lung cancer currently present to health services as emergencies, rather than in a planned way earlier on.

I asked about the rise in online and virtual consultations since the arrival of COVID, pointing out that while these were popular with some patients they were more challenging for others. We were told by senior oncologist Hugo Ford that currently 35 per cent of consultations are virtual, against a Government target of 25 per cent. There was agreement that we must be careful to ensure this does not result in a large number of patients being disadvantaged and cut off from health care.

I also asked about CUH’s plans for environmental sustainability and decarbonisation on the planned improved campus, and was told there was a sustainability plan in place working towards being ‘net carbon zero enabled’. I’m sure that after the immediate crises of the pandemic are over this is something we will want to return to.