A new 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.
Cllr Lisa 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.”
“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 long-term approach which will allow us to renovate what the NHS admit is the ‘ageing estate’ at Stepping Hill.”
Cllr Mark Hunter, Leader of Stockport Council, said: “As Chair of the Locality Board and on behalf of the Council, I have given my support to the efforts of the senior team at Stepping Hill to make the case for new facilities. Through the Mayoral Development Corporation we are building 4,000 new homes in the Town Centre and we have always said we need the right infrastructure to support them, including healthcare facilities and school places.
“Anybody who has been to Stepping Hill recently, as a visitor or patient, has seen for themselves the state that some of the buildings are in. I want to pay tribute to the many dedicated doctors, nurses and supporting staff that work at the hospital, doing such a tremendous job looking after us all despite those conditions.
“It is frankly a scandal that in this day and age they are having to operate out of such buildings and it really is about time the government gave us the funding needed to fulfil the ambition of a new hospital in the town centre.”
Cllr Tom Morrison, Lib Dem parliamentary candidate for Cheadle, added: “The closure of Outpatients B at Stepping Hill is sadly unsurprising after years of under-investment by the Conservatives. It’s clear that major funding is needed to fund the existing Stepping Hill estate and to develop a new, modern hospital for Stockport. Enough is enough, this is needed now.”
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.
