Prime Minister appears to rebuff MP’s offer to visit crumbling local hospital in same NHS Trust he delivered “Plan for Change” speech.

The Prime Minister Keir Starmer has seemingly rebuffed an offer from Sutton and Cheam MP Luke Taylor at today’s Prime Minister’s Questions to visit a crumbling south London hospital in the same NHS trust that he made his “NHS Plan for Change” speech just a fortnight ago.

St Helier Hospital in Sutton has been the subject of recent coverage for its increasingly declining estate, with some buildings in the hospital being older than the NHS itself.

In one case raised with Luke Taylor MP, a patient being treated for chemotherapy spent 54 hours in A&E.

On Monday the Health Secretary Wes Streeting confirmed that despite calls from the Trust and local Lib Dem MPs for accelerated funding for a new hospital building, the project is being delayed until 2032 at the earliest.

This has led the Deputy CEO of the Trust to say that the trust "now need to plan and prepare for the catastrophic failure of (their) buildings which could mean moving patient care into temporary buildings”

The Liberal Democrats have long campaigned to save St Helier hospital. 

Speaking at today’s Prime Minister’s Questions, Luke Taylor, MP for Sutton and Cheam, asked the Prime Minister: 

“Recently, the Prime Minister visited Epsom hospital where he committed to not just paper over the cracks in the NHS after years of Conservative lies.

“Yet on Monday his government confirmed that St Helier hospital will develop wounds and our hospital will crumble.

“St Helier hospital will not survive the delay this has introduced. People will die and NHS Staff will break.

“So I ask the Prime Minister, will he apologise to my constituents as they wait years for a new hospital building, and will he visit the hospital with me to witness first hand the dire situation our residents face?”

In response, the Prime Minister acknowledged that the former Conservative government failed to deliver the new hospital building, but did not accept the Sutton and Cheam MP's invitation to see the hospital for himself.