Croydon is to get a new hospital.

Intensive: Mayday is about to get a £14.7m upgrade

Well, of course not.

Although it probably won’t be too long before Chris Philp and Croydon’s Tories are hailing a £14.7million extension of the intensive care unit at Mayday as a “new hospital”, thus keeping in line with the government’s playbook script.

The ICU at Mayday has been in the frontline of not only Croydon’s but the whole of south London’s battle with coronavirus over the past 18 months, and the £14.7million new funding to improve and expand it will undoubtedly be very welcome by staff and locals.

What is sometimes called Croydon University Hospital will be able to increase the number of intensive care and high dependency beds by 22.

Work on the project will begin soon and is expected to take 18 months.

“Our intensive care team have been at the heart of our covid response in Croydon, caring for extremely unwell patients around-the-clock, and often for months at a time as we try to help people beat this virus and care for other serious illnesses and injuries,” said Matthew Kershaw, the chief executive at Croydon Health Services NHS Trust.

“The pace has been relentless and the arrival of this announcement could not be better timed.

“With more beds, we will be able to make sure more patients can receive highly specialist intensive care they need close to where they live, in a much more modern and comforting environment that our patients – and staff – deserve.”

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