I begin by declaring an interest, as I recently worked in the NHS—[Hon. Members: “Hear, hear!”] Thank you very much.
We have heard passionate speeches about some of the benefits that will come about in our national health service as a result of this additional investment, and I will focus on the improvement to the NHS estate. This additional investment will build new hospitals and improve existing ones.
My constituency of Carshalton and Wallington is home to St Helier Hospital, which is older than the NHS itself—it is over 80 years old. Many battles have been fought over the decades to prevent partial downgrading or even total closure, which has been dangled in front of St Helier for so long. Thanks to the Conservatives in government, however, we now have £500 million-worth of investment going into our local NHS trust, and I thank my hon. Friends the Members for Sutton and Cheam (Paul Scully), for Reigate (Crispin Blunt) and for Wimbledon (Stephen Hammond) and my right hon. Friend the Member for Epsom and Ewell (Chris Grayling) for their work before my arrival in this place and for supporting me since I got here in campaigning for the same.
This investment represents the long-term future of St Helier Hospital, and it has, in fact, already begun with more than £100 million having been pumped in to do things such as doubling the size of the accident and emergency department and to build a brand-new renal unit, which really is world class. I invite Health Ministers to come to visit the new renal unit at St Helier. It really is fantastic.
Perhaps most excitingly, this investment means we will have a brand-new third hospital within the catchment area of Epsom and St Helier University Hospitals NHS Trust. That means that, for the first time, we have a plan for local healthcare that means people will not have to travel to Croydon or Tooting to access the healthcare they need when they are most vulnerable.
The investment will also mean that over half of the hospital estate covered by Epsom and St Helier that is currently too dangerous to be used to provide healthcare can be brought back into use, which means we will no longer hear stories of people having to pull beds away from the walls because the walls are either damp or leaking. It also means we will not have stories of ambulances being used to transport patients from the back of St Helier to the front because the lifts are too small for a modern hospital bed.
Most importantly, the investment means we will have not one, not two but three local hospitals providing world-class healthcare to local patients. The consultation on the site of that third hospital has just launched, and it is open until 1 April, so I encourage all residents of Merton, Sutton and Surrey to have their say—I have a copy of it here for video reference. Residents should log on to improvinghealthcaretogether.org.uk to have their say about where they want the exciting future of our healthcare provision to be located.
This is about more than just St Helier. I have worked in the NHS before, and this Bill presents an opportunity to accelerate progress in delivering the NHS long-term plan. It will provide the NHS with the funding, staffing
and infrastructure it needs to deliver better patient outcomes, which of course must be the primary driver to future-proof our NHS. This investment must also go hand in hand with a change of healthcare delivery in this country, and I am delighted to see the commitment from the Health Front-Bench team on things such as social prescribing, empowering local pharmacies and prevention. All this and more will mean that our NHS will be better equipped to tackle the healthcare challenges of the future, particularly the scourges of illnesses such as dementia and cancer, levelling up mental health investment and continuing to provide excellent care for all of us, when and where we need it.