BORIS JOHNSON was urged to clarify his plan for the “biggest hospital-building programme in a generation” today after it emerged that it would not deliver dozens of promised new hospitals.

The Prime Minister said that 40 hospitals would be built across England over the next decade, however the details reveal that the plans would be dependent on his party winning the next two elections.

His promises included spending £13 billion on what officials described as “new” hospitals, by either creating entirely new buildings or gutting existing ones to create more modern facilities.

However, the short-term gain would only be a £2.7bn cash injection for six hospitals over the next five years.

Some of the hospitals set to benefit are in political battlegrounds, including Harlow’s Princess Alexandra Hospital Trust and Watford’s West Hertfordshire Trust.

Whipps Cross Hospital, where Mr Johnson was confronted earlier this month by a father whose seven-day old daughter was being treated at the hospital, is also set to receive money.

The other hospitals are Epsom and St Helier Trust, University Hospitals of Leicester Trust, and Leeds Teaching Hospitals Trust.

Shadow health secretary Jonathan Ashworth said that NHS staff and patients were “fed up of being taken for fools” with Mr Johnson’s pledges.

He said: “All his past promises on new cash have been exposed as a con and after years of Tory cuts, hospitals are crumbling, facing a £6bn repair bill.

“What’s more our NHS is short of 100,000 staff. Only Labour has a costed plan to recruit the extra doctors and nurses our health service needs.

“Ministers must now explain if today’s announcement is for completely new projects or ones already planned, what that means for the rest of the NHS capital budget, and outline whether existing hospitals or services will close as part of reconfigurations and over what timescale.

“Given Boris Johnson’s spin of previous health claims, patients and NHS staff will expect total honesty and clarity today.”