Critics are referring to a ‘double betrayal’

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THE boss of St Mary’s Paddington warned decision to delay a crucial rebuild of the hospital was “devastating news for our communities”.

The NHS hospital, with the largest repairs backlog in the country, had been set for a major upgrade in 2030 by the last Conservative government, following years of pressure from Labour politicians while in opposition.

But health secretary Wes Streeting announced that works to rebuild St Mary’s would not begin until 2035-2038, in what critics have called a “double betrayal”.

Professor Tim Orchard, chief executive of the Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust that runs the hospital, said: “This is devastating news for our communities, our staff and patients, and for the whole of the capital’s healthcare system.

“We understand that the government’s New Hospital Programme must be affordable but the simple truth is that St Mary’s Hospital, in particular, will not last until the 2040s.”

The hospital plays a crucial role for the NHS’s emergency response as the capital busiest major trauma centre.

Hammersmith and Charing Cross hospitals, also run by the Imperial trust, have also had funding pledges scrapped.

Prof Orchard he would be forced to consider “alternative funding approaches” including “leveraging the value of our land”.

The Extra has run several stories about the situation at St Mary’s, including in 2019 when Karen Buck, then Labour MP for Westminster North, called on the government to fund repairs with the warning: “St Mary’s is quite literally falling down”.

Tim Orchard

In a Commons debate she said: “The Grafton ward closed due to significant structural concerns, with the loss of 32 beds in May 2018 and no possible structural solution. A ceiling collapsed in the Thistlethwaite ward. The Paterson Centre was flooded and closed for two weeks, with the loss of activity and 20 surgical beds in 2017. Floods, electrical issues and drainage problems are commonplace across the buildings and services at St Mary’s. The hospital simply cannot wait, yet everything is now frozen. We urgently need advice from the minister on how we will proceed.”

In June 2023 Ms Buck also spoke in a debate about the hospital having “the biggest repairs backlog in the country” citing fires, floods that shut a ward for a fortnight, sewage leaks, and a ceiling collapse in a patient ward. Tory health secretary Steve Barclay had announced earlier that month that funding for a planned £1billion rebuild had been put back to 2030.

Imperial in 2020 published detailed plans that would see its land sold to a developer in return for a new super hospital being built on the site that would be designed by Foster + Partners.

Westminster City Conservatives’ leader Paul Swaddle quizzed council leader Adam Hug at a full council meeting on Wednesday, who blamed the “horrific fiscal inheritance” for forcing the government’s announcement.

Cllr Hug added: “I will not take lectures from the party opposite, which made an entirely fantastical nonsense new hospital programme without any money to deliver it. We all know Boris Johnson made all that up. We are as a government dealing with a difficult situation.

“However St Mary’s is a unique case. We have made firm representations and we will be working closely in a taskforce with Imperial to address the issues going forward. I am hopeful the government will listen to the case for moving forward with the business case that is already there.”

Cllr Swaddle suggested the government had dumped the hospital funding programme on Monday, at a time Donald Trump was dominating the news agenda.

Mr Streeting said: “The programme we inherited was unfunded and undeliverable. Today we are setting out an honest, funded, and deliverable programme to rebuild our NHS.”