INSIDE SUTTON: Yesterday’s announcement by Labour health secretary Wes Streeting that the promised new hospital at Belmont will be delayed by at least another seven years drew dire warnings from health professionals, reports DAVE BURTON
State of collapse: each passing year is costing £150m just to repair and patch-up St Helier
“We’re going to have to prepare for the catastrophic failure of our estate,” was the dire warning of Dr James Marsh, the deputy CEO of the St George’s, Epsom and St Helier NHS Trust, following the health secretary’s announcement yesterday of further delays to the New Hospital Programme.
“After decades of false promises, the people of south-west London and Surrey have been let down once again,” Dr Marsh said.
The New Hospital Programme is in disarray. Labour minister Wes Streeting chose a “good day to bury bad news” for his announcement, following an urgent review of the previous Tory government’s “undeliverable” hospital plans.
Under Streeting’s revised timetable, Sutton’s new acute services hospital construction is to be delayed by up to 10 years, with 2032 the earliest that building will start.
There was no announcement on refurbishment plans for St Helier Hospital which, alongside the new acute facility, was planned to play a continuing and significant role in local healthcare.
‘Decades of false promises’: Dr James Marsh, deputy CEO of the NHS trust at St Helier, was desperately frustrated by yesterday’s announcement of further delays
In a significant change, the new Sutton hospital adjacent to the Royal Marsden Cancer Hub site in Belmont has had its budget increased from £500million to up to £2billion. Whether this budget includes urgently required refurbishment work at St Helier is as yet unknown.
St Helier Hospital is literally falling apart, and has been for years.
“Many parts of our estate are already crumbling,” Dr Marsh said yesterday.
“Every year we delay adds up to £150million to the cost of a new hospital and keeping the current buildings safe to provide care.
“We’ve already had to condemn and demolish one of our wards,” he said.
“We know we’ve got lots of challenges in many other areas of the hospital and we’re deeply concerned that now we’re going to have to prepare for the catastrophic failure of our estate.”
St Helier’s 1930s, pre-NHS construction style is totally unsuited to modern-day medicine. The mounting backlog of repairs across the site means hospital staff are working in conditions where windows won’t close properly, plaster and paint are falling off the walls and brickwork is exposed.
Senior clinicians have repeatedly warned that without repairs, patient safety will be at risk, especially at times when a lack of capacity means patients are treated in hospital corridors.
Around £70million of this debt is classified as “high risk” repairs. Last week, a key department that takes blood had to close due to flooding.
The diminishing and reduced capacity to treat patients at St Helier is having a knock-on effect at nearby hospitals, too, with St George’s at Tooting, Epsom and even Croydon’s Mayday often having to see patients who might have otherwise presented at St Helier.
Bad news: health secretary Wes Streeting made the hospitals announcement in the Commons yesterday
The Conservative government promised 40 new hospitals by 2030. Not all of which were actually new hospitals. But in Sutton the promise was to deliver what the clinicians wanted – a new acute services hospital described as the “Specialist Emergency Care Hospital (Sutton)” in yesterday’s announcement – combined with a significant refurbishment of St Helier.
In announcing the outcome of his review of that plan, Streeting said yesterday, “The New Hospital Plan we inherited was unfunded and undeliverable.
“Not a single new hospital was built in the last five years, and there was no credible funding plan to build 40 in the next five years,” Streeting said.
“Today, we are setting out an honest, funded and deliverable programme to rebuild our NHS.”
Sutton’s MPs, LibDems Luke Taylor in Sutton and Cheam, and Bobby Dean in Carshalton and Wallington, were unhappy at the announcement, with Dean seemingly focusing on St Helier refurbishment rather than the new hospital. He still seems to be pushing for a rebuild at St Helier, despite what local clinicians have asked for.
Taylor criticised the incoming Labour government for failing to deliver its promised change.
Speaking in the Commons, Streeting said, “I know patients in some parts of the country will be disappointed by the new timetable They are right to be. They were led up the garden path by three Conservative Prime Ministers all promising hospitals with no credible plans for funding to deliver them.”
Extra funding: yesterday’s announcement put the Belmont hospital back to 2032, but with a £1.5bn budget
Up to a point, Lord Copper.
A source close to the local plans told Inside Sutton that, for example, pension funds were falling over themselves to provide patient capital, but there were issues with the debt being counted as Treasury debt, not just NHS Trust debt. It seems complicated, but an NHS Confederation report from October 2024 recommended this as a funding option for the new government.
None of which helps the heroic staff at St Helier who are battling a collapsing building to keep patients safe while trying to deliver first-class medical care. It’s unrelenting.
“If the Secretary of State feels that we can continue to deliver high-quality patient care for the next 10 years in these buildings, we’re very happy to invite him to come and inspect it himself,” Dr Marsh told the BBC.
“I’m extremely disappointed to hear about the further delay for the new build and this is devastating news for our patients.”
Read more: ‘Doctors say only a new hospital is the answer’ for St Helier
Read more: As Robotic Reeves ‘pauses’ hospital builds, St Helier crumbles
Read more: St Helier Hospital stretched to limits by a ‘tidal wave of flu’
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