Hospitals

Lisa Smart Excerpts

Wednesday 23rd April 2025 Commons Chamber

[Alex Brewer (North East Hampshire) (LD)]

My constituents are predominantly served by two hospitals: Frimley Park to the east and Basingstoke and North Hampshire to the west. Some 65% of Frimley Park is RAAC concrete, known to be highly unstable, so it is right that it is included in phase 1 of the new hospital programme and prioritised as urgently needing a complete new build. Basingstoke and North Hampshire hospital, however, has been moved to phase 3 and building is now scheduled to begin some time between 2037 and 2039, leaving staff and patients to endure the crumbling buildings for another 15 years.

That decision was made without a single ministerial visit—not one. However, I have visited the hospital and seen what is needed, so I can tell Ministers about the repairs needed to the ceiling to stop rain coming into patient wards and the windows that cannot open, cannot close or are not double-glazed. I can tell Ministers about the air conditioning and filtration systems that keep the air clean in the hospital’s operating theatres, which are already at their maximum capacity. Replacing those systems will become essential within five years, and there is no physical room to add to what is there.

I can tell Ministers about the flooring that connects two important parts of the hospital over a car entrance, which is in a poor state and held together with industrial tape. Patients are being trolleyed across that uneven, unstable flooring on a daily basis. The tape holding the site together is both literal and a metaphor for the state of the system and of hospitals right now in this country. Ministers would know that if they had visited the hospital. One third of the repairs needed are high-risk—not a phrase we want to hear associated with our hospital structures and systems.

[Lisa Smart (Hazel Grove) (LD)]

I completely agree with my hon. Friend that in none of the repairs we are talking about to our hospital infrastructure do any of us want to use the phrase “high-risk”. Stepping Hill hospital serves my constituents; I have met the Minister about it and I look forward to welcoming her to visit it later this year. Despite needing a reported £134 million spent on it, Stepping Hill is not on the new hospital programme. I am sure my hon. Friend agrees that the health of our nation is directly related to the wealth of our nation, and that investing in hospital infrastructure is thus an extremely good investment in all of our population.

[Alex Brewer]

I thank my hon. Friend for her intervention. Health and wealth are two sides of the same coin and we need to invest in both, which is why the delays are a false economy. Maintaining Basingstoke and North Hampshire hospital for the next 15 years will cost almost as much as the rebuild, making it a false economy and a categorically bad financial decision as well as a bad health decision. There is no point in investing in a multimillion-pound brand new air filtration system in a building that is falling down.

In June 2024, the Prime Minister who was then the Leader of the Opposition visited Basingstoke town but not the hospital. Assurances were given and reported in the Basingstoke Gazette that the hospital would be built by 2030. In February after the announcement, I asked the Prime Minister about the logic of the delay, given that it will clearly be a significant financial burden for taxpayers while continuing to limit healthcare delivery. I was told that the hospital would be built, but not when. This is a clear step backwards. With the exception of the shadow Minister, we all know the situation in which the previous Government left the country, but that is not a reason for economically and medically unsound decisions now. I invite the Minister—or any Minister—to visit Basingstoke and North Hampshire hospital with me to understand the full financial and health implications of this decision for local people in North East Hampshire.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lisa Smart (Hazel Grove) (LD)]

The very first thing I did when I came to this place was write to the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care—along with my constituency neighbour, my hon. Friend the Member for Cheadle (Mr Morrison)—about the state of Stepping Hill hospital. It is consistently the biggest issue raised with me by patients and staff, many of whom are my constituents, and there are few ways to see more clearly how the last Government let down my constituents than by considering the state of the buildings at Stepping Hill hospital. A number of buildings have had to be closed because they were deemed unsafe, placing more pressure on staff and services. The press reports that the repairs backlog at Stepping Hill exceeds £130 million, with millions needed to eradicate the most high-risk problems.

That sounds abstract—that amount of money is difficult to get your head around—so what does it mean to staff and patients? It means that my constituents write to me about having experienced major health issues, like cardiac arrest, and having been forced to wait in overcrowded areas without seating because there is not the space available. It means hospital corridors flooding and medics having to wade through the water to get to their patients. On one occasion, it means a constituent writing to me about what should have been the utter delight of having a baby delivered safely into the world—but 30 minutes before the baby arrived, the light fitting in the delivery suite fell down in the middle of active labour.

Stepping Hill sees about half a million patients each year. When I ask my constituents about their experiences of Stepping Hill, many tell me that they are worried about the buildings, but so many of them praise the phenomenal staff. I will share a few of those remarks with the House. Chris said that the staff could not have been kinder or more efficient.

Alan said:

“All staff at Stepping Hill, from top to bottom, were absolutely brilliant”.

Brenda said that the staff remained dedicated despite the state of the buildings. Amanda said,

“Without Stepping Hill and the wonderful doctors and nurses there, my son would not be here today”,

and Sheila said:

“Staff were run ragged but were amazing.”

The previous Government failed to provide the funding that Stepping Hill needs, and despite the huge repairs bill, it was left out of the new hospital programme. The legacy of that decision and of the failed Conservative Government hangs over my constituents, who deserve better. That Government broke their promise to my constituents, and I will continue to work with this and any future Government to get Stepping Hill what it needs. In part, that involves a new site in Stockport town centre. I am working closely with Stockport council and the trust to push for that. It could act as a diagnostic centre and an out-patient centre, and it is surely part of a strong, long-term solution to ensure that patient needs are met and my constituents get what they need.

The health of our nation is directly linked to the wealth of our nation and my constituents, whether patients or staff, are looking for the Government to have their back, to fund the repairs in Stepping Hill and to deliver the new additional site in the town centre.