We are proposing to make changes to the hospital services provided at Epsom and St Helier hospitals.
The majority of services would stay at both Epsom and St Helier hospitals in refurbished buildings both with ‘District Hospital’ services, running 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, with Urgent Treatment Centres.
For all of the options, Epsom and St Helier hospitals would still continue to provide “District Hospital Services”:
- Urgent Treatment Centres open 24 hours a day, 365 days a year for those people who can make their own way to hospital with non-life threatening conditions, which is around two thirds of the patients who currently use A&E
- Outpatient services follow-up or first appointments with hospital doctors and including kidney dialysis at St Helier Hospital
- Diagnostic services including X-ray, endoscopy, pathology, ultrasound, radiology and MRI scans
- Planned care procedures, for example day case operations, minor surgery, injections, radiotherapy and chemotherapy. South West London Elective Orthopaedic Centre which would remain at Epsom Hospital
- Hospital rehabilitation beds particularly for older people who are recovering from illness or to prevent them from becoming more ill
We want to bring together six core services for the most unwell patients and those who need more specialist care onto one site at either Epsom Hospital, St Helier Hospital or Sutton Hospital:
- Major emergency department for the sickest patients with life threatening conditions, including major emergencies, resuscitation and a dedicated specialist children’s A&E.
- Acute medicine for patients with the most urgent medical needs for example severe pneumonia, inpatient renal services, specialist and emergency treatment for patients who have a stroke or cancer.
- Critical care for the specialist care of patients whose conditions are life threatening and require constant monitoring – usually in an Intensive Care Unit.
- Emergency surgery for patients requiring emergency surgical assessment, treatment and operations for conditions like severe appendicitis – these are among the most unwell patients in the NHS – and this service is already centralised at St Helier Hospital.
- Births – we will co-locate both a midwife-led unit and a consultant-delivered unit for more complex births. This would mean one maternity unit for births in hospital. We would support as many women who choose to, to have their birth at home.
- Inpatient paediatrics – for children who need to stay overnight in hospital for treatment or observation.
The proposal to bring these six core services together onto one site would mean if either Epsom or St Helier hospitals are not chosen as the site to build the new specialist emergency care hospital these services would move to the site where the new facility is built. Whichever site is chosen, no services would move until the new facility is built. Each of the different options would take between four and seven years to build once building work begins.
We are asking for your views on three options:
- Option 1: A new specialist emergency care hospital at Epsom Hospital, providing all six services on one site with continued provision of district hospital services including a UTC at both Epsom and St Helier hospital sites open 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.
- Option 2: A new specialist emergency care hospital at St Helier Hospital, providing all six services on one site with continued provision of district hospital services including a UTC at both Epsom and St Helier hospital sites open 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.
- Option 3: A new specialist emergency care hospital at Sutton Hospital (co-located with Royal Marsden Hospital) with an additional UTC, providing all six services on one site with continued provision of district hospital services including a UTC at both Epsom and St Helier hospital sites open 24 hours, 365 days a year.
Option 3 is the CCGs’ preferred option. You can read more about the reasons for this in our public consultation document which is available on our website: