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Health Care (Sutton)

A little earlier, when I walked into the Chamber, I was overwhelmed by the pleasure that Members displayed on seeing me. I think that it had something to do with the earliness of the hour and the opportunity they would have to get on with other business on behalf of constituents. I am grateful for the opportunity to raise the issue of health care in my constituency and in the wider borough of Sutton, and my hon. Friend the Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Tom Brake) hopes to contribute to the debate if he can. I shall start with some geography. Although my constituency is called Sutton and Cheam, the area known as Worcester Park makes up a large part of it. Many of my constituents feel that because it is not included in the name of the constituency, it is often overlooked. I wish to ensure that that is not the case in this debate. There are real concerns about the quality and accessibility of primary, acute and mental health care in the London borough of Sutton and in particular in my constituency. I wish to raise five issues with the Minister in this debate. The first is the need for an early decision on the funding for ““Better Healthcare Closer to Home”” in general, and the new patient block at St. Helier in particular. The Minister will know from meetings that we have had that this issue is close to my heart and of considerable concern and interest to my constituents. Secondly, I want to talk about the future governance arrangements for the Epsom and St. Helier trust and the constituent parts of that trust. Thirdly, I want to draw attention to the shortage of GP cover in the Worcester Park part of my constituency. This has been an issue for some time, which is why I am mentioning it tonight. Fourthly, I want to register some concerns about mental health services and their development—or lack of it. Finally, I want to raise the future of the Sutton hospital site. ““Better Healthcare Closer to Home”” is a programme that has been worked up by the local acute trust, Epsom and St. Helier, the Sutton and Merton PCT, Surrey PCT and others over the last five or six years. A great deal of time and taxpayers' money has been spent on endless rounds of stakeholder engagement, citizen juries, consultation, strategies, plans, designs, the redrawing of those designs and—of course—consultants, to little apparent effect over the last 10 years. Although ““Better Healthcare Closer to Home”” is the current programme, there have been previous exercises with various titles, including ““Investing in Excellence””. All those programmes have attempted to grapple with problems such as providing more health care outside general hospital settings and in the community, to bring more health care, diagnostics and other treatments closer to where people live. Many of us welcome such ideas, but it is also recognised that long-overdue investment is needed in the general hospital at St. Helier. I say that many of us recognised that, but not all of us did, and part of the reason why the process has taken so long is that that view was not generally held for some considerable time. As a result, we have had much to-ing and fro-ing over where a new general hospital might be built. I am pleased to say that we now have a conclusion, which is that it should remain where it is, at St. Helier, and that that is where the investment is needed. For the period 2004-08 more than £4 million has been spent on the ““Better Healthcare Closer to Home”” programme. That money has not built anything, but it has produced reams and reams of paper. So far, it has not delivered anything. We will never know how much was spent on the abortive work on ““Investing in Excellence””, because as the trust said in reply to a freedom of information request,"““any invoices related to this project will have been destroyed””." We will therefore never know precisely what costs were incurred, but we do know that—since 2000 when the St. Helier and Epsom hospitals merged into a single trust—£7.7 million has been spent on consultants. We do not know whether all that consultancy related to these programmes. As a result of all these delays, while Kingston, St. George's in Tooting and even the Mayday hospital in Croydon have seen investment, St. Helier has sat perched on the hill overlooking south London, with paint peeling, marking time, waiting for a future.