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Health Care (Sutton)

I congratulate the hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam (Mr. Burstow) on securing the debate. I appreciate the comments that he and the hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Tom Brake) have made. I begin by paying tribute to the NHS staff in and around Sutton for their hard work and dedication, as a result of which, and the Government's investment in the health service, the hon. Gentlemen's constituents are receiving better health care than ever. Waiting times are at record low levels, life expectancy and other health outcomes are higher than they have ever been and with more than half the hon. Gentlemen's GP surgeries now offering extended hours, it is easier to see a GP in Sutton than ever before. The latest annual report into NHS performance by the independent health watchdog the Healthcare Commission said that both the primary care trust responsible for organising services in the hon. Gentleman's constituency and his local hospitals have improved on their performance of last year. As the hon. Gentleman will appreciate, however, health care can never stand still. With advances in medical technology and treatment, the NHS has constantly to examine how it can best provide services to meet the needs and expectations of the public. There is also, as he understands and acknowledged in his speech, a long history to the debate over the best way to organise services in south-west London. We are now at the stage where proposals have at last been agreed, as the hon. Gentleman also graciously acknowledged. The proposals are supported not only by all the PCTs and acute trusts in the area that have an interest, but by the local Members of Parliament, with whom I have had discussions about the issues on a number of occasions in the past, and they have been unanimously supported by the local overview and scrutiny committees—the local government representatives who scrutinise local health proposals and, if they feel the need, object to them. The local needs, local health review launched jointly by Epsom and St. Helier University Hospitals NHS Trust and the London strategic health authority will consider whether there are better ways of managing the two hospital sites, as the hon. Gentleman outlined, and better ways for the trust to meet the diverse health needs of his local communities. It will look at how it can ensure that patients access better services locally, and that the trusts continue to improve standards of care and meet their statutory obligations, while recruiting and retaining adequate staff and maintaining their continued professional development. The review is not exclusive to the trust and the London SHA. It involves three other partner organisations: Sutton and Merton primary care trust, Surrey PCT and the South East Coast strategic health authority. The organisations should be commended for working together in an effort to reach a workable solution that should meet the needs of the populations that they all serve; that is not always easy, when local considerations come into play. The local needs, local health review will be run by a project board, which will be made up of executive and non-executive directors from the five partner organisations and chaired by the London SHA. A project team of senior managers from the partner organisations will support the project board. The team will be led by a project director, who will report directly to the trust. It is hoped that the project board will meet in December for the first time. One of its first tasks will be to engage staff and volunteers in the review process to ensure that their concerns and views are taken into account. The project board should be in a position to deliver a formal report by the end of spring 2009. That should allow sufficient time for the review to take place, while the uncertainty surrounding the future of the two hospitals is resolved as quickly as possible. Of course, I understand the desire of the hon. Members for Sutton and Cheam and for Carshalton and Wallington to make rapid progress, but I hope that they understand that it is important to get things right, rather than move quickly to make changes that one might later regret. As the hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam said, the ““Better Healthcare Closer to Home”” strategy is linked with the plans for Epsom and St. Helier University Hospitals NHS Trust. The strategy is led by Sutton and Merton PCT, in partnership with Epsom and St. Helier University Hospitals NHS Trust. Its aim is to reshape the whole health service in Sutton and Merton, so that it provides better quality health care, designed around the needs of local people. The programme proposes to create integrated health care services, based in a number of local care centres that are supported by a local acute hospital that provides core secondary services. The outline business case, referred to by the hon. Members for Sutton and Cheam and for Carshalton and Wallington, was submitted by Sutton and Merton PCT to NHS London on 23 October. It is a complex programme, comprising a number of projects, the largest of which, as the hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam acknowledged, is the £152-million first phase of redevelopment of St. Helier hospital. Other projects include local care centres in the following locations: Nelson hospital, costing £19 million; St. Helier hospital, costing £15 million; and Wilson hospital, costing £10 million. There will also be an intermediate care centre on the Wilson hospital site, costing £12 million. In total, the projects for which approval is sought from the SHA have a capital value of £208 million. In addition to the suite of projects that I have just outlined, there are a further two—a local care centre at Wallington and an urgent care centre on the St. Helier site—with a combined capital value of £18 million. As I am sure that the hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam will appreciate, the assessment of all those projects has to be thorough, and the analysis must be robust. Capital advisory staff at the London SHA will collate responses and questions from the project board, and they will be sent to the PCT and trust in December. Subject to satisfactory responses by the trust and PCT to the questions raised, NHS London will take the case through its approval process in January 2009. Assuming that all goes to plan, and the proposals are approved by the SHA and my Department, the proposed timetable is as follows: the Wallington local centre should open in 2011, the Nelson and Wilson local care centres and the Wilson intermediate care centre will open in 2013, and the St. Helier local care centre and phase 1 of the site redevelopment will open in 2016. That timetable allows time for the development of detailed plans for final approval, the production and approval of full business cases for each element of the project, including Treasury approval for the St. Helier site, and the construction and commissioning of the buildings. The hon. Gentleman reminded me of his interest in a possible fifth local care centre, to be sited on the Sutton hospital site. I understand that the PCT is in preliminary discussions with the Royal Marsden NHS Foundation Trust about possible options for the development of a different type of health facility on that site. Again, I hope that the hon. Member will appreciate that all the interested parties want to make sure that the proposals meet the needs of the local community, and that we provide first-class, sustainable services in surroundings that are fit for purpose and represent the modern, high-quality NHS. The hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington will have to forgive me; I was not briefed on the issue of the Henderson hospital site. However, I will ensure that he gets a response on the subject from my fellow Minister of State, my hon. Friend the Member for Corby (Phil Hope), who is responsible for mental health matters. On the complaint that he mentioned about services provided at Epsom general hospital—