New figures reveal over £100m needed to fix Esher and Walton’s local hospitals

£100m is needed to clear the hospital maintenance backlog and to repair crumbling buildings at the two main hospitals which serve Esher and Walton, new analysis by the Liberal Democrats has found.

Meanwhile, the part of the NHS which covers hospital buildings is facing a £700 million cut, threatening the planned new hospital for nearby Epsom and St Helier.

Nationally the cost of the maintenance and repairs backlog has been revealed by the NHS estates review as an astonishing £10.2 billion. It comes alongside news that the NHS waiting list has hit 7 million people, with nearly 120,000 people stuck on wait lists in NHS Surrey Heartlands, which includes patients in Esher and Walton. 

Liberal Democrat analysis shows that Kingston Hospital NHS Foundation Trust – one of the two main hospitals that serve Esher and Walton – has a backlog of repairs costing £30m, while at Ashford and St Peter’s NHS Hospital Trust, which includes St Peter’s hospital in Chertsey, repairs will cost nearly £76 million.

On top of this backlog, the small print of last week’s Autumn Statement revealed the savage cut to the Department for Health’s capital spending budget next year, which is used for buildings and infrastructure. The Government’s pledge to build 40 new hospitals by 2030 will be funded via this budget. Last month the Prime Minister refused to confirm whether new hospitals, such as those promised for neighbouring Epsom and St Helier University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust – which is already facing a repairs backlog of over £31 million – will get the funds they need to start building.  

Elmbridge Liberal Democrats are calling for the Chancellor to halt his plans “to make patients and staff pay” for the Conservative government’s “economic mess”. They propose urgent investment in local hospital buildings to ensure they are safe and can function effectively. 

Monica Harding, prospective Parliamentary candidate, said:

“The Conservative Government are failing patients and NHS staff in our area.  The chronic state of disrepair in our local hospitals is not only a scandal in itself. It is also a symptom of this Conservative government’s dire mismanagement of our NHS. 

“The fault lies squarely at the feet of Conservative ministers. It is their inaction which has led us to this point. They should lay out a plan to recruit the staff we need and to remove these repair backlogs immediately, not impose more damaging and dangerous cuts.”

Liberal Democrat Health Spokesperson Daisy Cooper MP added: 

“This Conservative Government has been running health services into the ground for years. Now they look set to cut the funding needed right now, to deliver on their key promise of 40 new hospitals by 2030. The public deserves better.

“Our nation’s hospitals are in dire need of repair: there are too many horror stories of roofs leaking, crammed corridors and swelteringly hot intensive care wards. 

“If the Conservative government does not deliver on their hospital promise, people in Surrey will never forget it.”