Major London hospitals could be forced to close after rebuilds delayed, ministers warned
Share:
MPs and senior NHS officials have warned that major London hospitals could be forced to close after ministers delayed plans to rebuild them. Among the major London hospitals facing delays for critical rebuilds include Charing Cross Hospital, St Mary’s Hospital in Paddington and Hammersmith Hospital, which won’t see work begin until 2035-2038, and St Helier in Sutton, which will not see work begin until at least 2032.
Trust executives told on Tuesday how their hospitals were already crumbling in a “whack-a-mole” game to keep facilities running, with some floors sinking with hospital beds on them and entire surgeries being hit with power and water outages. MPs representing Sutton and Epsom, which St Helier serves, said the hospital’s existing facility “has reached the end of the line”.
Local MP Bobby Dean told the Standard: “The floor is sinking, the ceiling leaks, lifts regularly break, which means you can not transfer patients to the places in the building that they need to be in. “Many parts of the hospital are far too hot to work in during the summer. Far too cold during the winter.
“There are floods that happen in parts of the building. There are bits of the building which are literally just being propped up with bits of tarpaulin and pieces of wood. “Probably most critically the intensive care unit is not fitted out to modern-day standards when it comes to things like ventilation and space requirements. You might often have two or three patients where you are meant to have one for example.”.
