Consultation opens on St Mary’s masterplan as estates challenges worsen
Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust today launches a public consultation to inform the first stage of a masterplan for the redevelopment of the St Mary’s Hospital site. It comes as the Trust responds to two current estates issues that are causing extensive operational challenges.
St Mary’s masterplan
With funding from the Government’s New Hospital Programme, the Trust has begun detailed design and planning work for the St Mary’s redevelopment. The aim is to build a new, taller hospital on a smaller footprint, on the east of the nine-acre site. This will allow us to organise services, research and staff facilities in a much better way and keep our existing facilities running while we build the much needed, new hospital. It also gives us an opportunity to reshape the whole site with an overarching masterplan.
We want to explore using surplus land to expand Paddington Life Sciences, which brings together our clinicians with Imperial College London and life and data sciences organisations that have become established around St Mary’s.
As well as accelerating the development of new treatments and technologies, this would support economic growth, create jobs and skills opportunities for local people, and help attract additional investment to offset the building costs.
Meanwhile, we are proposing that the new hospital will provide over 800 beds to meet growing and increasingly complex healthcare needs. It will remain London’s busiest major trauma centre, supported by a new rooftop helipad for faster access to life-saving care.
Public consultation
The public consultation launching today will be used to inform key principles for the emerging masterplan. It builds on previous consultations and engagement that are feeding into the development of principles for the design of the new hospital.
As part of the consultation, the Trust is hosting a series of local pop-up events where patients and members of the local community, as well as staff and neighbours, can find out more, speak to the project team and share their views. They will take place:
• Saturday 28 February, 10am–2pm – The Bays Building, South Wharf Road, London W2 1NY
• Tuesday 3 March, 11am–3pm – Church Street Market, Church Street, London NW8 8DT
• Wednesday 4 March, 11am–3pm – Ground floor, QEQM Building, South Wharf Road, St Mary’s Hospital, London W2 1NY
There is also information on our website, along with an online survey:
www.imperial.nhs.uk/st-marys-development
This consultation focuses on the early principles that will guide the masterplan. Feedback gathered at this stage will help shape how proposals evolve before detailed designs are developed.
This initial masterplan consultation will close on 20 March 2026. There will be many further opportunities for patients, staff, residents and stakeholders to be involved in shaping both the wider masterplan and the design of the new hospital as plans progress.
Worsening estates challenges
The St Mary’s Hospital estate is one of the oldest in the NHS, with parts dating back to 1845. As a Trust, we have the largest amount of ‘backlog maintenance’ in the NHS. In the last four years alone, the cost of our backlog maintenance has increased by 22.5 per cent - or £157 million, far outstripping the £104 million we have been able to spend on addressing backlog maintenance over that period.
In the past three months, we have had to respond to two new estates issues that are causing extensive operational challenges:
Main outpatient building – Following the discovery of reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete (RAAC) in the main outpatient building in November 2025, further structural analysis informed our decision in late December 2025 to close the whole building later this year to ensure everyone’s safety. This is requiring us to find new spaces for 50 clinics, as far as possible elsewhere on the St Mary’s site. With support of NHS England’s national RAAC programme, we are working up plans to repurpose other facilities on the St Mary’s site, accelerate models of care changes to reduce the need for in-person appointments as well as potentially move some clinics to other sites.
Mint building - Following a routine structural inspection at the end of 2025, we identified further significant issues with the foundations of the Mint building. This is the oldest part of the St Mary’s estate, housing a range of clinical services as well as our education centre. We are continuing with immediate stabilisation works as well as further investigations to inform a more detailed risk assessment to determine the longer term future of the affected sections of the building.
Next steps for redevelopment
With our partners in the wider St Mary’s Redevelopment Funding Taskforce, we are continuing to explore additional financing sources and models to allow us to begin the main building works for a new St Mary’s as soon as we have planning permission. This would deliver a new hospital by 2035, compared to the current New Hospital Programme timetable which delays delivery until 2043 at the earliest.
We are aiming to complete the design work and submit a planning application – for the new hospital and the wider masterplan – by spring 2027.
Find out more about our plans and how you can share your views on our website.
