Hospitals

Luke Taylor Excerpts

Wednesday 23rd April 2025 Commons Chamber

[Rebecca Paul (Reigate) (Con)]

I am grateful for the chance to speak in today’s debate and to be able to give voice to so many of my constituents’ frustrations about how their right to access quality healthcare has been deprioritised by this Labour Government.

Many of my constituents, especially those in the north of my constituency, are served by the Epsom and St Helier university hospitals NHS trust. To be blunt, the situation at the trust today is simply not sustainable—clinically, financially or structurally. The trust currently operates two acute hospitals, in Epsom and St Helier, with duplicate services spread across both sites. The arrangement, while a product of historical necessity, today places considerable pressure on clinical teams. Allocation of staff members between sites is challenging and service delivery is stretched. No matter how committed the staff—their dedication is beyond question—they are constantly being asked to do more with less, in buildings that are often quite literally falling apart around them.

To give just one brief example, earlier this year St Helier was forced to cancel scheduled blood tests because of widespread flooding in the phlebotomy section. We simply cannot go on like this. Indeed, time is not a luxury we have, with the estate now deteriorating faster than it can be fixed. The trust is spending millions every year simply to keep the most urgent problems at bay: patching leaks, coping with flooding, and addressing the worst outbreaks of damp and mould. I think we all agree that these are not the conditions in which 21st-century healthcare should be delivered.

That is why it was so disappointing to learn earlier this year that the planned specialist emergency care hospital in Sutton—a long-standing scheme under the new hospital programme that was carefully conceived to address the very issues I have mentioned—has been delayed to the point that work will now not even begin until 2030 to 2035, with opening coming in 2037 at the earliest.

The new hospital will consolidate emergency care into one state-of-the-art facility, delivering world-class treatment, faster access to care, and safer outcomes. At the same time, it will allow for major investment at Epsom and St Helier hospitals, helping to modernise crumbling buildings, improve planned care pathways and ensure that most services remain close to home. Under the trust’s plans, 85% of services would remain on the Epsom and St Helier sites, including out-patient care and diagnostic appointments. Local people would continue to receive the vast majority of their care where they always have done, but would benefit from shorter waiting times and access to better facilities, particularly for surgery. I passionately believe that the new hospital at Sutton is a once- in-a-generation chance to overhaul healthcare provision and ensure that my constituents receive the high-quality care they deserve in a timely fashion.

[Luke Taylor (Sutton and Cheam) (LD)]

The new Sutton hospital will sit in my constituency. In 2020, we were promised by the former Member for Sutton and Cheam that the hospital would open in 2025; indeed, he continues to have that claim on his website. Does the hon. Lady agree that the failure to deliver any new hospital in Sutton borough, whether at Belmont or St Helier, is entirely down to the failure of the previous Government to fund and bring forward these projects while they were in power?

[Rebecca Paul]

I can confirm to the hon. Member that if the Conservatives were in power, we would be delivering that hospital.

I want to be clear: the trust is ready to move forward, and clinical consensus has been secured; what is now urgently needed is commitment from the Government to drive the programme forward. After all, patients and staff alike deserve better than to spend another decade or more in facilities that are not fit for modern healthcare delivery. They deserve to know that promises made through the new hospital programme will be honoured, not quietly shelved or endlessly deferred by this Government.

I urge Ministers in the strongest possible terms to look again at the decision to delay Sutton emergency care hospital and to provide the long-term certainty the trust needs to proceed—not in 2035, but now.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mark Ferguson (Gateshead Central and Whickham) (Lab)]

I refer the House to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests.

This has been an interesting and enlightening debate in some ways. Of all the subjects on which the Liberal Democrats might have brought a motion to this House, it is fascinating that we are talking about new hospitals, as I think everybody would agree that the Labour party has invested both historically and under this Government in the national health service. In fact in the last Budget back in the autumn, £13.6 billion extra was allocated to NHS capital expenditure—a record amount. I know that Opposition Members have not particularly enjoyed repeated references to the coalition years. I do not think anybody in this House particularly enjoys remembering the 2010 to 2015 period. The Conservatives certainly do not, and apparently the Liberal Democrats—

[Luke Taylor]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Mark Ferguson]

I am barely getting going but would be delighted to add an extra minute to my speech.

[Luke Taylor]

It is amazing how short memories are on the Labour side of the Chamber. The note from the right hon. Member for Birmingham Hodge Hill and Solihull North (Liam Byrne) which said “I am afraid there is no money” led to decisions that were apparently “ideological”, yet difficult decisions now being made by the Labour Government are “mature and realistic”. It is amazing how short the memories are to make those two things different. A lot of time and patience are being given to this Government for the delays to our hospitals; if their tone were more constructive, more patience would be given.

[Mark Ferguson]

If we want the tone to be constructive, we should be constructive about the fact that Labour is going to be building hospitals, when no hospitals were constructed over the last five years. The reality is very clear: hospitals do not simply appear; we cannot wish a hospital into existence. They require two things: money and time. If we wish that there were more new hospitals in this country, we should go back in time to 10 to 15 years ago. That would have been a fantastic time, when borrowing was much cheaper than it is today, to have invested in hospitals in all our communities. Unfortunately, the cancellation of the building schools for the future project was basically the first act of the coalition Government, and there was a lack of investment in schools and hospitals. As the shadow spokesperson the hon. Member for North Shropshire (Helen Morgan) has said today, we are cleaning up the mess that has been left. That was the characterisation of the early 2010s, but it is very much more realistic today. The shadow spokesperson accused the Government of a lack of imagination. Well, there has been no lack of imagination here; there has been magical thinking from the Liberal Democrats, who apparently believe that a taskforce will generate the billions of pounds necessary to build hospitals immediately.

--- Later in debate ---

[Helen Maguire (Epsom and Ewell) (LD)]

The crisis in our NHS and the scandal of crumbling hospitals are a daily reality for my constituents and all communities served by the Epsom and St Helier university hospitals NHS trust. We have allowed our healthcare infrastructure to decay to a point where it hinders the delivery of care. These are not minor cosmetic issues; many of our hospital buildings predate the NHS and are riddled with damp, mould and leaking roofs. Yet we expect our dedicated doctors, nurses and support staff to deliver world-class treatment under those appalling conditions. The consequences run far deeper than peeling paint: patient safety is jeopardised, staff morale is crushed, and the basic functioning of our hospitals is compromised. Staff are stretched to their limits, struggling to provide the care that our communities deserve in facilities that are simply not fit for purpose. They deal with the consequences of decades of under-investment, where patching up failing infrastructure has become the norm—a short-sighted and ultimately more costly approach.

The impact of the ageing estate on elective recovery has meant that since April 2024, more than 600 operations have had to be cancelled. The lifts break down and cannot be fixed simply because they do not make the parts any more. Over the past five years, over £60 million has been spent on improving the Epsom and St Helier estate just to keep it operational. At St Helier, 46% of repairs are identified as high risk.

The human cost of this crumbling infrastructure is evident. Patients are forced to endure unacceptable waiting times, often in undignified conditions. A&E waiting times at the Epsom and St Helier trust are among the worst in London, with over a third of patients waiting more than 12 hours for a bed.

[Luke Taylor]

My hon. Friend mentions corridor care. That is a recurring theme in Members’ inboxes. A constituent recently told me that her husband, who is immunosuppressed because of his chemotherapy, had to wait 54 hours in A&E at St Helier with sepsis, exposing him to more infections on top of his existing conditions. Does she agree that without a proper rescue package for crumbling hospitals like St Helier, immunosuppressed patients will continue to be put at unnecessary risk?

[Helen Maguire]

I am sorry to hear that story. It is just one among a catalogue of incidents that we hear of on a regular basis.

This past winter, more than 2,000 patients waited over half a day just to be seen. The delays not only cause distress and anxiety but can have serious and long-term consequences for patient outcomes. The Epsom and St Helier university hospitals NHS trust has worked diligently, developing detailed plans for a new specialist emergency care hospital alongside the modernisation of Epsom and St Helier hospitals. This state-of-the-art facility would be a beacon of hope, improving outcomes for our sickest patients and consolidating acute services in a way that strengthens staffing and keeps care local. But that promise has been left to wither. The Health Secretary’s latest announcement pushes the start of construction of the new specialist emergency care hospital to 2032 at the earliest, adding to decades of false promises that have let my constituents down time and again.

That is why, this Friday, I will be abseiling 125 feet down St Helier hospital to raise funds for the Epsom and St Helier Hospitals charity and shine a spotlight on the urgent need for investment in our hospitals. The funds raised will provide extra support to our hospitals, over and above what the NHS can currently deliver.

Charity can only fill so many gaps; it cannot substitute for the Government action that our hospitals desperately require. The Government should reverse the delay to the new hospital programme and urgently deliver the new hospitals that patients have long been promised. They must prioritise the construction of the specialist emergency care hospital and fund the long-overdue repairs at St Helier. My constituents deserve nothing less than modern, safe and high-quality healthcare.