2027 target is now 'a stretch' for new Epsom and St Helier site
The new hospital would be next to the Royal Marsden
Last updated 10th Mar 2023
An Epsom and St Helier NHS boss said the 2027 date for opening its new Sutton hospital is “now a stretch”.
The NHS hospital trust is waiting for further feedback from the government’s new hospitals programme before it can begin the planning process for a new specialist emergency care hospital, which was confirmed as part of the scheme in 2020.
James Blythe, managing director at the trust, said it was hoped a response would come soon from central government, which committed to building 40 new hospitals across the country.
Speaking at a meeting of Epsom and Ewell Borough Council’s health liaison panel on March 7, Mr Blythe said the trust had been asked to stop the pre-planning engagement process it had started in late 2021 because of fears the trust would “go too far down the line” without knowing what would be required under the programme.
He said the next stage of having funding confirmed would mean the trust would know if it could submit a full planning application, giving details of the design, access and infrastructure implications of the new site to Sutton Council, who will make a decision on it.
The new hospital would be next to the Royal Marsden, on the site of the former Sutton hospital and would include an accident and emergency department, critical care, acute medicine, emergency surgery, inpatient paediatrics and a maternity unit.
Mr Blythe said: “That is a quite substantial piece of planning.
“It requires capital funding from government even just to go through planning, because that’s not something that we are budgeting to do.”
He said the trust hoped to start work on a detailed planning application in “the next couple of months”, but also told the meeting the process “would not be insignificant” for such a site in a residential area.
The managing director said: “Then we’ll have to see where we go from there.
“This is why we’ve said 2027 at the earliest.
“Because in a sense, that is an aspiration. I think it’s now a stretch.”
With an original opening date of 2025, Mr Blythe said the trust didn’t want to “keep resetting the date” but hoped to be able to give more clarity once the planning process had started.