- Health Secretary gives new NHS hospital in Sutton the green light following independent advice
- Patients and the public will now be engaged in shaping the new services
South-west London and Surrey residents will benefit from a new, state-of-the-art NHS hospital after the Health Secretary gave plans the green light, following independent advice.
As part of the government’s health infrastructure plan to build 40 new hospitals by 2030, the brand-new hospital will be built in Sutton with district health services remaining in modernised buildings at Epsom and St Helier.
Health and Social Care Secretary Matt Hancock said:
This new hospital will be transformational for patients and staff at Epsom and St Helier University Hospitals Trust and the wider community.
I look forward to seeing the hospital take shape over the coming months and years, and hope that the public will be as involved as possible in shaping the new services.
This new hospital is one of 40 we are building up and down the country by 2030, as part of our £3.7 billion hospital building programme.
Daniel Elkeles, Chief Executive, Epsom and St Helier University Hospital Trust, said:
We welcome the advice from the Independent Reconfiguration Panel, and are delighted that the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care has agreed that we should proceed with investing £500 million in a new hospital at Sutton, and in Epsom and St Helier hospitals.
We are now proceeding at full speed to design the new hospitals and will soon be engaging with our local communities on the new hospital facilities. All being well we aim to have builders on site in Sutton in Spring 2022, with a new Specialist Emergency Care Hospital opening in 2025.
Following public consultation in the spring, the decision to build the new hospital in Sutton was referred to the Independent Reconfiguration Panel by the Health Secretary last month.
The panel considered that the proposals are in the interest of local health services and will improve health outcomes locally. They did not find any reason to disagree with the choice of Sutton as the site for the new hospital, and concluded that that the proposals should proceed.
The panel also advised that patients and the public should be engaged in shaping the new services in order to gain maximum benefit from them.
It is one of the 40 hospitals the government is building by 2030 as part of the biggest hospital building programme in a generation worth £3.7 billion. Eight further new schemes have been invited to bid, delivering on the government’s manifesto commitment.
The Independent Reconfiguration Panel (IRP) is the independent expert on NHS service change and advises the Secretary of State on contested proposals for health service changes in England.
The Secretary of State referred the decision to build a new hospital in Sutton to the IRP who considered the proposals and did not find any reason to disagree with the choice of Sutton as the site for the new hospital and concluded that that the proposals should proceed.
The Secretary of State considered and then agreed with the IRP advice.
Follow this news feed: HM Government