The Labour government announced yesterday that the funding that is desperately needed to rebuild St Mary’s Hospital in Paddington has been delayed for at least a decade and may not start until 2038.
Cllr Paul Swaddle, the Leader of the Conservative Group on Westminster City Council, has condemned the delay.
“Labour campaigned on this issue through the election and promised to prioritise rebuilding our most important local hospital.
Labour has let us all down again, and then slipped the news out on a busy news day that included the US Presidential inauguration in the hope we wouldn’t notice!”
The last Conservative government had planned to rebuild the hospital much earlier, and the Secretary of State for Health and the Conservative candidate visited the hospital to underline their support ahead of the election.
Cllr Swaddle added,
“This is a failure of local Labour to do the hard work in making the case for St Mary’s. When the Labour government came in, they suspended the national hospital rebuilding programme launched by the Conservatives. We had been lobbying to make St Mary’s a priority and have been thanked by hospital managers for doing so.
But it’s now clear that Labour in Westminster didn’t use their influence with the government to get the result we all needed.
They have been complacent and Westminster residents will now lose out on the funding needed for the healthcare they deserve.”
Professor Tim Orchard, chief executive of Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust, has already issued a damning statement, saying,
“This is devastating news for our communities, our staff and patients, and for the whole of the capital’s healthcare system.”
He added that he didn’t believe the hospital will last until the works are now scheduled to be completed.
St Mary’s is the busiest trauma hospital in London and cares for more than a million patients a year. It is a vital resource for residents and workers across Westminster, and the Government must urgently release the funding and bring the rebuilding of the hospital forward, or thousands will suffer.
Cllr Tim Barnes, Deputy Leader of the Conservative Group, fears the money is still not secure,
“Labour has kicked this funding into the long grass, and we don’t have any confidence this funding will be delivered even in ten years.
Across the country, they are planning to do the cheapest projects first and have left the big ones like St Mary’s until last.
The three waves of the building have been prioritised by cost, not by need.
