‘Best ideas’ wanted from developers as three hospitals look to rebuild
PROPERTY developers were today urged to get involved in the £900 million transformation of one of the country’s best-known NHS hospitals.
Health chiefs hope to strike a deal for St Mary’s that will allow a rebuild to be fully funded from the sale of parts of its Paddington campus and the Western Eye Hospital, in Marylebone Road.
It is one of three potential new or rebuilt hospitals in London. A campaign was launched today in support of a new hospital at Whipps Cross, in Leytonstone. Radical plans have also emerged to safeguard the future of St Helier hospital in Carshalton by building a new A&E in Sutton — perhaps saving it from losing out in a reorganisation of emergency care in south-west London.
Imperial College Healthcare, the NHS trust that runs St Mary’s, today sent prospectuses to 50 developers to gauge their interest in partnering on a redesign of the Paddington site.
The trust envisages a £750 million main hospital rebuild centred on the Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother building, including a new major trauma centre next door. This is the second stage of plans revealed last September for a £162 million outpatients unit, on the “triangle” at the junction of Praed Street and South Wharf Road.
Parts of the St Mary’s site date to 1845 and the cumulative repair bill is £1 billion. The Western Eye would be relocated to the eight-storey triangle building. The mothballed Samaritan Free Hospital, alongside in Marylebone Road, would also be sold off.
The “soft market testing” with developers is designed to assess the interest in an area boosted by a new Crossrail station and the “Paddington Cube” development. Getting a full business case approved by the Treasury is likely to take three years, with a similar period to build the new hospital. Michele Wheeler, director of redevelopment at Imperial, said: “Our priority is getting a new hospital. We want to get the best ideas.”
Waltham Fore st council t o d ay boosted the hopes of Barts Health NHS Trust in securing funds for the redevelopment of Whipps Cross by launching a “Love Whipps Cross” campaign.
The hospital is on a sprawling site with many derelict Victorian buildings. A full rebuild would cost £520 million but the trust hopes to partner with a university, lease or sell space to other NHS organisations, or sell land for commercial development.
Council leader Clare Coghill said: “This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to redevelop Whipps Cross into a worldclass health and wellbeing campus.”
At St Helier, whose A&E has been under threat for years, “blue-sky thinking” involves building a new hospital on the Sutton campus occupied by the Royal Marsden and the Institute of Cancer Research, which aims to develop a world-class cancer hub. This would let St Helier, which spends about £5 million a year on maintenance, to focus on outpatients and planned surgery.