Intensive care evacuations, collapsed ceilings and flooded floors - and it could carry on like this at Stepping Hill Hospital

A crumbling major Greater Manchester hospital will continue to experience the serious impacts of its old age - having being denied money by multiple governments, bosses have admitted.

Stepping Hill Hospital is facing a bill of more than £130m to fix a decaying estate. Over the course of four months this year, the Stockport hospital has seen one of its major outpatient buildings condemned - followed by two 'unexpected and unrelated' ceilings collapsing in its radiology department and its critical care unit.

Those incidents have led to a serious dip in the capacity for outpatient appointments and the hospital's intensive care department being out of action for days. The hospital's chief executive has warned that bosses at the site must be 'realistic' about the amount of funding to maintain the current buildings – 'meaning [they] are likely to experience more issues as the result of our ageing buildings'.

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Stepping Hill has been spurned by multiple governments in its attempts to secure funding for repairs. In autumn, the Labour administration U-turned on funding to fix up the hospital due to the state of public finances, which Chancellor Rachel Reeves has said amounts to a £22bn black hole.

In the years prior, the Conservative government rejected Stepping Hill's bid to be one of '40 new hospitals' promised by then-Prime Minister Boris Johnson. At a board meeting of Stockport NHS Foundation Trust, which runs the hospital, a report was presented today (Thursday, December 5) from the body's chief executive, Karen James.

Ms James warned that the major problems caused by the decrepit buildings will continue: "Our hospital featured within the media throughout October due to the ongoing estates issues. The age of our estate was one of the reasons for our application to the Government’s New Hospitals Fund in 2023, which was unfortunately unsuccessful. While we still have ambitions to build new facilities for the people of Stockport, we are also realistic about the amount of capital funding that is likely to be available to maintain the current hospital buildings, meaning we are likely to experience more issues as the result of our ageing buildings."

But there is some construction work getting underway at the troubled hospital – with building starting to replace the condemned and demolished Outpatient B facility. ‘Modules’ are being built ‘for a new outpatients building’ featuring 55 rooms, the Manchester Evening News understands, expected to be operational by summer 2025.

“Some work is being done on site,” the board meeting was told today. “On a positive note, there are modules [being built] on site. The build is coming together and the facility will be operational in June/July, which is good news for patients and clinicians.”

Since the closure of the Outpatients B building in November 2023, the services previously based in there have been provided from a variety of temporary settings. The Outpatients B building was finally demolished earlier this year.

The new building will allow its former services back on site at Stepping Hill Hospital in one purpose-built centre, set to have the latest state-of-the-art features in place, the trust says.

The scheme is expected to cost £24.3m and comprises two floors of clinical space. A 450 tonne crane is being used to put each of the 72 separate units in place.

Ms James said: “It is very satisfying to see the construction of our new outpatients building fully underway, and I would like to thank our capital estates team and our contractor partners MTX for their hard work on this. The logistical difficulties in transporting the many large modules which make up this building are immense, and they have done an excellent job. We are very much looking forward to having our outpatients services being provided from this new and greatly improved building.”

Shocking images surfaced in June just before Labour achieved a landslide general election result. They showed the seriousness of Stepping Hill’s estate problem – a flooded corridor and an intensive care unit in disarray after a ceiling collapsed.

The collapses happened inside the radiology department and the critical care unit. Seriously ill patients receive intensive and high-dependency treatments in the wards, while dozens had their scheduled procedures and appointments cancelled. Evacuated patients were at first cared for in operating theatres but some were then transferred to a nearby hospital.

Yet, only months after the election, the incoming government caused outcry from Stockport MPs after minister of state for health Karin Smyth informed them that funding pledged for the hospital is not available 'at this stage'.

Shortly after the u-turn, Andrew Gwynne, a former Stockport MP before taking up his seat in Gorton and Denton, told the M.E.N.: “Obviously we've got the challenge of hospitals that haven't had a penny spent on them for a decade or more that are now in the process of falling down as you say – Stepping Hill is in a dreadful condition. The department is aware of that.

“It is a priority that we look into how we help those hospitals, so that the people of those areas, in this case Stepping Hill or North Manchester, have the right to have the best hospital facilities that we can provide them in the NHS.”