'Come and see our crumbling hospital for yourself, Mr Sunak'

More than 2,500 props are holding up the roof of the crumbling Queen Elizabeth Hospital in King's Lynn.

Part of the roof of the Queen Elizabeth Hospital which is held up with steel and timber supports

And the building is likely to have become too dangerous to continue operating after 2030, despite the government spending £90m on a cage of girders to prevent it collapsing.

But the QEH was not included in a list of 32 new hospital builds announced two years ago.

It is still waiting to hear whether it will be included on a list of eight further schemes expected to be announced later this year.

Rishi Sunak at the Tory leadership hustings in Norwich (Image: PA Wire/PA Images)

Now it has emerged senior staff have written to both Rishi Sunak, who became prime minister following Liz Truss's resignation after her disastrous 49 days in office on Monday, and Steve Barclay, who has been re-appointed health secretary.

Mr Barclay's predecessor Therese Coffey would have been the fourth health minister to visit the QEH in two years had she remained in office long enough to fulfill her pledge to come to King's Lynn.

Mr Barclay visited during a previous short-lived stint as health secretary in Boris Johnson's cabinet in July.

Health secretary Steve Barclay (centre) is shows some of the supports holding up the roof at the QEH (Image: Dave Fincham)

While the North East Cambridgeshire MP had previously called for the replacement of the 500-bed hospital - which serves his constituency and was his son's birthplace - he refused to be drawn after touring it.

The QEH has drawn up plans for an £862m rebuild on what is currently the car park.

Graham Ward, acting chair of the trust which runs the hospital, said the QEH had had more investment over the last two years then the previous 10 but that did not take away the need for a new hospital.

A model of the proposed new hospital (pink), which would be built on what is currently the car park, which would be replaced by a multi-storey (blue) (Image: Chris Bishop)

While there are fears that if the new-build is not given the go-ahead soon it may not be ready by the 2030 deadline, Mr Ward said the project was still achievable.

Alice Ward, the QEH's interim chief executive, said there was no Plan B.

The hospital, which opened in 1980, was built using aerated concrete roof planks with an expected working life of 30 years. It is still in operation more than four decades later.