‘They need to open their eyes’: The NHS children’s ward in desperate need of cash

• Video report by ITV News Political Correspondent Angus Walker

Any cash injection from the Treasury is welcomed by the NHS, but this latest one - in the opinion of those on the frontline - barely scratches the surface of what is needed.

While 20 hospitals across England are to benefit from Boris Johnson's NHS cash boost of £1.8 billion, many struggling health facilities lost out on the funding.

Addenbrooke’s Hospital in Cambridge is in desperate need of an upgrade, with doctors and nurses forced to contend with an increased workload combined with a rapidly ageing hospital infrastructure.

But the hospital, which serves over one million patients a year, has not been one of the lucky recipients of Monday’s announcement.

That means clinicians, at least in the near term, will be working in facilities - some intended to help its youngest and most vulnerable - that are "not fit for purpose".

ITV News visited the main children’s ward, which has not been refurbished since the 1980s, to see just how much the hospital was in need of an upgrade.

Youngsters who have just had brain surgery are forced to recover in a cramped and noisy ward for weeks on end, while teenagers with severe mental health problems are sharing wards with unwell babies.

On top of this there is no toilet for staff and just one bathroom for up to 44 parents.

"They’ve [staff] made the best of what they’ve been given,” says Kayleigh, mother of six-year-old Toby who has recently come out of an induced coma in intensive care.

"But there’s just no breathing space at all and you’re in each other’s faces a lot - it is cramped."

The need for investment is clear on the faces of patients, parents and paediatricians witnessed during a day spent on the frontline of the hospital, with staff relentlessly navigating packed corridors and bays to treat children with a multitude of conditions.

The urgency of the situation, however, is not lost on the chairman of the trust responsible for the hospital.

"The conditions in which young children, under traumatic and difficult conditions, with parents who are stressed are in - we are not providing them with the kind of facilities that I would want and they require," Mike More, chair of Cambridge University Hospitals, says.

More is lobbying the government for investment in a new specialised children’s hospital that bosses believe will be the first to successfully integrate physical and mental health.

The Department of Health has promised £100 million towards the project but there remains a black hole of between £120-150 million.

Without delivery of that much-needed cash, senior staff fear the dilapidated hospital will struggle to provide even the most basic care in a safe environment let alone deliver on its bold ambitions.

Speaking as a nine-year-old girl underwent brain surgery, Ibrahim Jalloh, a consultant paediatric neurosurgeon, said he and his colleagues felt constant frustration at the "crumbly infrastructure" that greets young patients and their families during a traumatic time.

"A lot of the time we are firefighting - we get stuff done and provide a good service but we do after time feel the creaks in the system."

Asked what her message would be to the prime minister and Treasury, one parent added: "They need to open their eyes, come into places like this and see what these guys do and the difference they make."

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