Now, the hospital could finally be redeveloped after it was chosen as one of 21 organisations to receive a slice of £100m in government seed funding. The grand ambition is to build a £400m hospital, but the West Suffolk NHS Foundation Trust has a long way to go before shovels hit the ground.

The West Suffolk announcement is part of the government’s plan, touted as “the largest hospital-building programme in a generation”, to split £100m in seed funding between 21 NHS trusts across the country and £2.7bn between six other hospitals that have been deemed to need the money more urgently. The Department of Health and Social Care says the exact amount of funding each trust will receive has yet to be made public.