Hands off our local hospital services!
St Helier Hospital set to be downgraded and lose beds
Under the misleadingly titled ‘Improving Healthcare Together’ plans put forward by our local NHS Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCGs)*, St Helier and Epsom Hospitals will lose the following acute services:
A&E
542 acute beds
Consultant-Led Maternity
Intensive Care
Children’s Inpatient Care
Emergency Surgery
Emergency Medicine
Coronary Care
Cancer Care
The CCGs’ preferred proposal is to downgrade and remove all acute services from Epsom and St Helier Hospitals and move them to a new single smaller unit in Belmont next to the Royal Marsden (almost 50% privately funded) Hospital
Be warned!
Patients’ lives will be put at risk with longer travel times to Belmont, and many patients having to travel to other already oversubscribed hospitals in the region.
There will be a cut in the number of acute beds and consultants.
The status of St Helier and Epsom Hospitals will be downgraded from University Hospitals to District Hospitals, and their lower status will leave them open to asset sales and back door privatisation of our NHS services in line with government policy (Health and Social Care Act 2012 and Naylor Report).
Land is being sold off from our NHS hospitals! Already part of the Epsom site has been sold to private developers and the same is planned at St Helier. Once gone we can never get it back.
Make your voice heard
The CCGs failed to carry out proper public consultation, failed to properly publicise the public information events they did hold, and failed to openly and honestly communicate the proposed plans and how they will affect residents.
What you can do
Write to or email your local councillors on Sutton, Mitcham & Morden or Epsom Councils. Tell them that you oppose the IHT (Improving Healthcare Together) plans and that you would like your local council to refer the decision back to the Secretary of State for reconsideration.
Siobhain McDonagh, Labour MP for Mitcham and Morden, has asked Merton Council to "refer back" to the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care the plan to remove all Emergency, Maternity and Children's care from both Epsom and St Helier.
Find your Sutton councillors here
Find your Epsom and Ewell councillors here
Find your Merton councillors here
Write to or email your MP to ask him or her to oppose the CCG’s plans. You can find your MP’s details here
Sutton Borough’s two Tory MPs, Paul Scully and Elliot Colburn, fully support the IHT proposals.
Find out more on the Keep Our St Helier and Epsom Hospitals (KoSHH) campaign Facebook page
and the Hands Off Our Hospitals (Labour, Trades Union and local health campaigners community campaign) Facebook page or listen to this interview with Sandra Ash on Radio Jackie
* Surrey Downs, Sutton and Merton Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCGs) who originally agreed the plans have since merged into SWL CCG and Surrey Heartlands CCGs