Responding to concerns about St Helier Hospital

The last few days have seen disturbing reports in the media about St Helier Hospital.

What are the problems at St Helier?

Coverage on ITV News, the Wandsworth Times, the Observer and BBC Radio 4 has highlighted many serious problems with the building:

• One ward has been closed because its foundations were sinking, causing cracks in the walls and a collapsing floor
• An intensive care unit is closed because the ventilation unit it broken and the building is too old to fit a modern replacement
• A makeshift wooden roof in part of the hospital is held down by sandbags
• The hospital floods in winter – this winter, water in tunnels under the hospital was waist-deep
• Water leaks through the ceiling of reception in the maternity ward, where staff work under a sheet that channels the water into a bucket
• Some windows have holes and some are held closed with masking tape

What do the managers of the hospital say?

• James Blythe, the hospital’s Managing Director, told ITV news that “St Helier was built in the 1930s… it is a building that is largely no longer fit for purpose. Parts of it are really crumbling.”
• Managers stress that patients continue to receive good quality care, though they say it’s increasingly hard to provide this in the existing building, and soon this may become impossible. Dr Ruth Charlton, the Chief Medical Officer of Epsom and St Helier University Hospitals NHS Trust, told the Observer that “I fear we won’t be able to provide the level of care we’d like to – or should be – for much longer”.
• Ruth Charlton also commented that the hospital is having to spend large amounts of money maintaining the building which could be used to treat patients.

What is happening to resolve these problems?

• The government is committed to building forty new hospitals, and a replacement for St Helier is among them.
• However, plans to build a new hospital are not moving forwards. St Helier staff don’t even have planning permission for the new building. They say that this is because they don’t know how much money will be available. The soonest the new hospital will open is now 2027.
• Sir Julian Hartley, the Chief Executive of NHS Providers, told Radio 4 this morning that the need for new hospitals is now urgent, and that hospital managers need a government decision to be made in the next few weeks.

What are Healthwatch Sutton doing?

• We have written to James Blythe, the hospital’s Managing Director, expressing our concerns.
• We are planning a piece of work to ask local people about their experiences of St Helier – we'll publish more details soon. In the meantime, you can tell us about your experiences of St Helier on our website.

What can you do?

• Tell us about your recent experiences of St Helier using the form on our website.
• You can raise your concerns with local councillors and MPs.
• If you, a friend or relative are receiving treatment at St Helier and want to raise an issue with someone at the hospital, contact the PALS service.