The Improving Healthcare Together consultation finished on 1st April 2020. Thank you to everyone who responded in person, online, through social media and by phone and letter.
Click here to read the independent analysis of feedback from consultation report.
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The new specialist emergency care hospital will care for the most unwell patients. This may be because they have a life-threatening illness or injury. It could be because they are having complex surgery. It also includes births in hospital, so we have consultants available 24/7 to help if needed.
The specialist emergency care hospital brings together six major services. This means clinical expertise, experience and resource in one place 24/7. The six services are:
Major emergency department for the most serious accidents and illnesses
Acute medicine for patients with the most urgent medical need
Emergency surgery for conditions like appendicitis
Critical care for intensive monitoring, usually in an intensive care unit
Paediatric care with specialist children’s doctors and inpatient beds
Births, with the midwife-led unit and consultant-led unit for more complicated births.
More information can be found here
To have your say, fill in our questionnaire here.
An urgent treatment centre (or UTC) look after adults and children who make own way to the hospital
A UTC is open 24/7 and staffed by doctors and emergency care nurses.
In a UTC, our staff will treat the most common illnesses and injuries.
Things like broken bones, cuts and bruises, objects in eyes, sprains and temperatures.
Patients who need more specialist care will go to the new emergency care hospital.
An ambulance will take them straight there if they call 999 from home or from the UTC if they arrive there first.
More information can be found here
To have your say, fill in our questionnaire here.
If we build the new specialist emergency care hospital at Sutton it will take four years. If we build it at St Helier, it will take seven years. If we build it at Epsom, it will take six years.
More information can be found here
To have your say, fill in our questionnaire here.
Under our plan, we will spend £500m to improve Epsom and St Helier hospital buildings and build a brand new specialist emergency hospital. The new hospital could be built at Epsom or St Helier – but Sutton is our preferred option.
Whichever option is chosen, we will invest a minimum of £80m in Epsom and St Helier hospital buildings. The hospitals will treat over 700,000 patients every year
As modern district hospitals, they will provide commonly used services like…
• Outpatient clinics
• 24/7 urgent care
• hospital beds for rehabilitation
• day case operations, minor surgery, injections
• diagnostics like X-rays, blood tests, radiology and MRI scans
• low-risk pre-and postnatal care.More information can be found here
To have your say, fill in our questionnaire here.
We want as many people as possible to be aware of our proposals and have their say on our plans. We are using at least 15 ways to directly reach local residents and communities. We are doing these across Sutton, Merton and Surrey Downs.
Public events open to everyone. Dates, times and venues are promoted in local media, on our website and social media.
Community outreach work. We go out and meet groups of people who could be overlooked. These groups include older people, deprived communities and people with learning disabilities.
Voluntary groups. We work with voluntary groups to help us connect with our many communities.
Deliberative events. In-depth discussions with selected residents. These help us talk with people of all ages, gender, ethnicity and socioeconomic status.
Focus groups and in-depth interviews. Small group discussions with people who represent groups identified by our impact assessments. These include older people and pregnant women or women who have recently given birth. Other examples are 16-24-year-olds and parents of under 16s. We also do face-to-face interviews with individuals from harder to reach groups.
Telephone surveys. In-depth phone surveys to help us reach more residents
Mobile roadshows. These take place in busy places like markets, supermarkets and leisure centres
Clinical pop-ups. These are events held with patients and staff in GP surgeries and St Helier and Epsom hospitals
Royal Mail door to door leaflet drop. Thousands of leaflets delivered to houses across Merton, Sutton and Surrey Downs. Leaflets also sent to GP practices, pharmacies, St Helier and Epsom hospitals, councils and libraries.
Distributing consultation materials. We have sent consultation material to areas of high public use. These include GP practices, citizens advice centres and council buildings. Other examples include leisure centres, libraries and pharmacies. We have also provided copies for community and voluntary sector organisations. Our material is also available on our website. A paper questionnaire is available and can be posted back for free.
Making materials accessible to all. The main material is available in English plus Tamil, Urdu and Polish. These are the most common languages in our areas. Information is also available online, and paper copies provided on request. Easy read versions of the consultation summary and questionnaire are also available. Our website has software to support anyone with a visual impairment, learning disability or if English isn’t their first language.
Social media. We are using free and paid-for social media to reach residents.
Radio advertising. Adverts have run on local radio across all Merton, Sutton and Surrey Downs.
Local newspapers. We advertise regularly in local newspapers, and the latest news and updates on our proposals are covered in the news sections.
To have your say, fill in our questionnaire here.
Most services, around 85 percent, will stay where there are now. We know transport and travel is important to get to appointments or visit loved ones. Once we know where the new hospital will be built, we will work with local authorities and Transport for London on detailed travel plans. Once a decision is made, we will have at least four years to put the right travel plans in place.
More information can be found here
To have your say, fill in our questionnaire here.
St Helier is a very old hospital. It was built in 1938. That’s why it is so important we can modernise it under our proposals. Our plans for renovation will factor in the problems of modernising older buildings.
At the moment, we are spending a lot of money to make sure St Helier’s buildings are fit for purpose. We have spent £100m on St Helier in the past three years. By 2025, work will have finished on the St Helier buildings needed under our proposals. These existing buildings do make construction work more complicated. That’s why it will take three years longer to build the new emergency care hospital at St Helier than at Sutton.
To have your say, fill in our questionnaire here.
The hardest posts for us to recruit are acute services. These are services, like A&E and acute medicine, which care for the most severely ill patients. We have enough of these specialist staff to work in a single larger unit, but not enough to work across two sites.
Also, most medical staff have jobs that are a mix of both emergency and planned care, like outpatient clinics. Too often, a lack of staff means they can’t free up their time for planned care work because emergencies take priority. Under our model, there will be enough staff so doctors can protect time for emergency work in the specialist hospital, and for planned care at your local district hospital. This is much better for patients. It is also more attractive for staff.
To have your say, fill in our questionnaire here.
The district hospitals will continue to employ senior doctors, nurses and other professionals as part of dedicated NHS teams working on-site. Colleagues in the specialist emergency care hospital will be available to give additional advice and support as needed. Teams from the hospitals will also come together to discuss care of individual patients. For example, on-going care for patients after complex surgery who are going back to their local hospital.
Having the district and specialist emergency hospitals working together is integral to the success of our model.
To have your say, fill in our questionnaire here.
Day surgery will usually take place in the district hospitals. More complex surgery will take place in the new specialist emergency care hospital. Patients will either return home from there when fit and well or will return to their nearest district hospital if they need more time to recover.
To have your say, fill in our questionnaire here.
The broader health and care system is absolutely focused on supporting residents to keep well at home, instead of spending long periods in hospital. Our plans will help to do this. For example, there will be greater integration with social care. This will help patients get home quicker with the care they need.
To have your say, fill in our questionnaire here.
Under our plans, the district hospital beds will be used for a wide range of patients. They will be used for dialysis and day-surgery, and by the leading South West London Elective Orthopaedic Centre (SWLEOC) based at Epsom Hospital.
These beds will also provide ‘‘step-down’ care. This is for patients recovering from more serious illnesses or complex surgery, but are well enough to leave the specialist emergency care hospital. They can also be used for ‘step-up care’. This is for patients who are not well enough to return home, but don’t need emergency specialist care.
To have your say, fill in our questionnaire here.
Yes. We will refurbish or build all wards for elderly care so they are dementia friendly.
To have your say, fill in our questionnaire here.
No decision has been taken yet on where the new hospital will be built. The new specialist emergency care hospital will have a brand-new consultant-led maternity unit and other specialist support on hand 24/7. This will provide all the care expectant mothers might need, especially if the birth is more complicated.
At the moment, neither Epsom or St Helier hospital provide care for complicated births. Epsom Hospital provides care for low-risk births and St Helier Hospital for moderately complex births. The most complex births take place at St George’s Hospital in Tooting. This is because they have a neonatal intensive care unit. St Helier’s maternity unit
If expectant mothers need to get to hospital quickly now or in the future, a blue-light ambulance is the fastest and safest way.
To have your say, fill in our questionnaire here.
Yes – wherever the new hospital is built, it will be part of the existing Epsom and St Helier Trust. This, plus closer working with the wider health and care system, will make sure patient care is properly joined-up.
To have your say, fill in our questionnaire here.
Our plans are based on considerable traffic and travel analysis, including during rush hours. We have also involved the ambulance service. This is why we say that most journeys can be made in under 30 minutes and often less. It is important to remember that ambulances do not get held up in traffic in the same way private cars do. Also, for most services, you and your family will continue to use your local hospital.
To have your say, fill in our questionnaire here.