UPDATED St George’s Hospital will formally merge with Epsom and St Helier under a plan approved by their boards earlier this month. No official announcement has been made.
James Blythe, interim chief executive, told a board meeting on 5 March that he was passing on a decision taken minutes earlier behind closed doors. “The private board did consider a draft strategic outline case to submit to NHS England later this month in order to start the process of looking at the options and ultimately moving towards a merger of the two organisations,” he told a board meeting.
A week later, no press release has been published and no public consultation has been announced. GESH says it wrote to the four affected MPs on 25 February – Dr Rosena Allin-Khan (Tooting), Fleur Anderson (Putney), Helen Maguire (Epsom and Ewell), and Bobby Dean (Carshalton and Wallington) – advising them of its intention to submit the case, subject to board approval. Putney.news has asked all four MPs to confirm whether they received that letter and what their response to the merger plan is. None had replied at the time of publication. No equivalent communication was made to the public.
The contradiction with the group’s own public commitments is stark. When the two hospitals joined forces in 2021, Epsom and St Helier’s official announcement was explicit: “The organisations are not merging, meaning both Epsom and St Helier, and St George’s will remain as statutory organisations in their own right.”
The document approved on 5 March (known as a strategic outline case) is the formal first step in an NHS merger. It will be submitted to NHS England imminently, opening a process that ends with Epsom and St Helier ceasing to exist as a separate organisation. Both hospitals would come under one board, one management team, and one set of accounts. The process typically takes two to five years.
St George’s is the main hospital for Putney residents. The merger will shape which services are available (A&E, maternity, specialist care) for hundreds of thousands of people across south-west London and Surrey.
Why now
Both hospitals are losing money. The group’s own board papers show a combined shortfall of £176 million this financial year. Government payments that cover most of that gap are being phased out: St George’s has been given two years to break even; Epsom and St Helier, three.
Epsom and St Helier is also under formal NHS England supervision on three separate grounds: its finances, its waiting lists, and its emergency care. At the 5 March meeting, the chair said the board had “a game plan to try and get out of both” supervision arrangements.
There was also supposed to be a solution to Epsom and St Helier’s problems with its crumbling estate: a new Specialist Emergency Care Hospital in Sutton, promised in 2020, with building work to start in 2022 and the doors opening by 2025. The government has since pushed the project back; construction is now expected between 2030 and 2035. The group’s own plan describes the opening as “at least 12 years away.”
Interim CEO Blythe also told the meeting that Epsom and St Helier needs to become an NHS Foundation Trust, and that merging with St George’s is “the right route” to achieve that.
Who wasn’t consulted
It is not the first time services affecting Putney residents have changed without public notice. Queen Mary’s Hospital in Roehampton had its operating theatres closed last year as a cost-saving measure. No public consultation was held.
Putney.news has asked GESH why no announcement was made, what changed since the 2021 commitment, and what public engagement is planned.
Later this week, we will publish a longer piece covering the decision’s four years of quiet preparation, what a merger means for services and jobs, and how key decisions were made without public input or debate.
UPDATE – 12 March 2026, 2pm: GESH has contacted Putney.news to let us know that staff have been informed internally, that Integrated Care Boards have been briefed, that the four MPs have been made aware, and that the trust approached a trade publication with the news, which did not publish it.
The spokesperson confirmed that the trust has not shared the news externally. No press release has been issued, no public announcement made, and no public consultation announced. The MPs contacted by Putney.news have not yet responded. We will update this article when they do.
GESH subsequently provided documentary evidence of the 25 February letter – see correction below.
Correction – 13 March 2026, 1pm: Following publication, GESH provided a letter dated 25 February 2026 showing it had written to MPs and other stakeholders ahead of the board meeting, advising them of its intention to submit a Strategic Outline Case subject to board approval. The article has been corrected to reflect this. The letter was not made public and no equivalent communication was sent to residents.
