New hospital call to preserve vital services
ANEW hospital for Stockport is the only long-term solution to the deterioration of the buildings at Stepping Hill.
Lisa Smart, the Liberal Democrat parliamentary candidate for Hazel Grove constituency, is launching the campaign for a new site.
Smart said: “Enough is enough.
“We’ve seen years of problems with crumbling buildings at Stepping Hill Hospital with the final straw being the closure of the Outpatients B department late last year, following a “significant deterioration” in the building.
“That’s why I am calling for a new, central hospital for Stockport to provide crucial services that Stepping Hill is struggling to provide.”
Under the proposals, critical services would be moved to a central site at a town centre site – for example, the outpatients services which have been scattered across the current facility after the Outpatients B closure.
The target is to then add key services to this site in the centre of Stockport, next to the new transport interchange – and ideally next to a new Metrolink line that Stockport also been campaigning for – and then rebuild higher quality buildings for specialist services at the current Stepping Hill site.
Lisa continued: “For years the Conservative Government has been promising ‘40 new hospitals’, and not even pretending to deliver them.
“Well I’m demanding that Stockport gets the new hospital that it needs and that you deserve. High quality, accessible and central.
“This will not only be the fastest possible solution to the closure of the Outpatients B department, it will be a longterm approach which will allow us to renovate what the NHS admit is the ‘ageing estate’ at Stepping Hill.”