Everyone who lives, works, or visits South West London and Surrey, relies, or may rely on the provision of acute hospital services in this area.
Acute hospital services include:
- Accident & Emergency
- Maternity
- Paediatrics
- Intensive Care
- Cancer Care
- Coronary Care
- Emergency Medicine
- Emergency Surgery
The future of acute services in our area is currently threatened by a proposal to reduce the number of sites where we can obtain Acute hospital services - from the current 5 sites (St George's Hospital, Kingston Hospital, Croydon Hospital, Epsom Hospital and St Helier Hospital), down to 4 or even 3.
Both Epsom Hospital and St Helier Hospital are currently planned to LOSE their Acute services, possibly as soon as next year (2020), with only the possibility, some 5 or 6 years later, of a SINGLE, smaller, "acute facility" in their place.
The proposal is being led by local NHS bosses from Merton CCG (Clinical Commissioning Group), Sutton CCG & Surrey Downs CCG, who have jointly set up an organisation called "Improving Healthcare Together 2020-2030". You can find out a summary of the proposals in the video below.
- What is proposed is not, as some have suggested, a new "hospital".
- The proposed new single "acute facility" would have fewer acute beds than we already benefit from at Epsom and St Helier hospitals.
- The proposed new single "acute facility" would have fewer consultant Doctors than we currently have.
- The proposed new single "acute facility" would be further away from most people.
- The proposed new single "acute facility" would only be accessible via emergency ambulance, or with a referral from a GP.
- At the earliest, even if a new acute facility were to be built, it could not be ready until at least 2025 or 2026.
We need MORE acute hospitals, more acute beds & more clinicians - not fewer!
Some local politicians have suggested that they will back a proposal to build a new facility, as long as it is built somewhere local to them. This is simply NOT GOOD ENOUGH.
Retaining all services at BOTH Epsom Hospital and St Helier Hospital
is vital for all of us.
As MPs have a say in this matter, we are asking all of the Candidates standing locally in the General Election if they would be prepared to sign our pledge cards regarding our local acute hospitals and the wider NHS.
We think they are the basic requirements for the health and well being of our community.
The pledge card can be seen below and downloaded here:
If you are a Prospective Parliamentary Candidate in the 2019 General Election in any of the constituencies listed below, and would like to commit to the pledge, please print it, sign on the dotted line and name your party -with a bold pen- and then photograph yourself with it.
Then please email the photograph of yourself back to us at info@koshh.org, or better still, tweet it to us at @Save_St_Helier.
The constituencies in question are:
We will publish all of the pictures we receive, on our website and social media platforms, and any Prospective Parliamentary Candidates who choose not to reply will be identified as such.
We need our local Members of Parliament to fight for our local hospitals, and we intend to hold them to account, to ensure that they stick to their pledges.
We will publish the results at the pages which will shortly be linked below - check back soon!
You can download the pledge card by clicking the PDF icon below: