An extension to the Department for Transport’s NHS Chargepoint Accelerator scheme has been announced, which will support the NHS in England to roll out hundreds of new electric vehicle (EV) charging sockets and modernise some of its 20,000 strong fleet of medical vehicles.
The £4m investment into NHS charging infrastructure followed the award of £10m from the Department for Health and Social Care last month and the £8m awarded by the Department for Transport (DfT) in 2025.
Switching the NHS vehicle fleet to electric will save the health service millions and help to decarbonise 460 million miles of travel each year. The financial savings can be invested directly back into frontline care.
Chris Gormley, Chief Sustainability Officer at NHS England, says: “Moving to electric vehicles is helping to make the NHS fit for the future – providing quick response times for patients and improving air quality around hospitals.”
EV infrastructure
The latest public charging figures released by the DfT at the end of February, show there are now 116,052 public EV chargers in place across the UK.
This new updated data provides a more accurate picture of the UK’s charging capacity by reporting individual EV chargers, which typically serve one vehicle, rather than charging devices that may contain several chargers. It offers the strongest estimate yet of how many vehicles can be charged at any one time.
Ian McKee, Head of Communications at ChargeUK says: “Our sector has been charging ahead with the rollout of infrastructure to support the growing number of EV drivers on UK roads. The total number of charging devices is one way to track how we’re doing and consistently shows the direction of travel, but it doesn’t show the whole picture of progress towards putting the right chargers in the right places.
“The introduction of a new metric, EV chargers, into the government’s official figures is a welcome move that, alongside the data on types and locations, will help to provide greater transparency to inform the EV transition.”
Last month, DFT launched its new ‘Get that electric feeling’ campaign to help drive uptake in EVs by highlighting the benefits of going electric, including savings of up to £1,400 on running costs.
