A public meeting was recently held where locals and staff were able to voice questions or concerns about the future of Epsom and St Helier hospitals.

The Annual Report for 2016-17 was released at the meeting which took place on Friday July 14.

Trust Chief Executive, Daniel Elkeles, said: “I am really pleased we had this opportunity to reflect on the past year and engage with our local community about the future of our hospitals. It’s our mission to provide great care to every patient, every day – both now and in the future. Thanks to the hard work and innovation of our staff, as well as strong working relationships with our health and social care partners, we have achieved a great deal and have a lot to be proud of.

“In recent years we have become much safer, improved the quality of our care, recruited hundreds more frontline clinical staff and stabilised our finances. But the fact is we are held back by our ageing buildings, many of which were designed before antibiotics were discovered. We want to continue improving, and we aspire to deliver great quality care despite the many challenges we all know that the NHS faces, both in the short and medium term”.

During the calendar year the hospital revealed that they took in a record 913,583 patients with £16.7 million spent on improving buildings, ICT systems and medical equipment.

Mr Elkeles added: “I think it is vital that our hospitals prepare for the future now, and that is why we have started our Epsom and St Helier 2020-2030 engagement campaign. We want Epsom and St Helier to be ready for whatever the future may bring. That’s why we are asking for your help and support in making our case for an investment of between £300 and £400 million, to help keep our services local, and to build a new specialist acute facility.

“The more people who engage with us in this discussion, and make their voice heard, the better we can shape our new acute facility to fit the needs of the local community”.