Health chiefs are urged by Brentwood and Ongar MP Eric Pickles to "come clean" on the date when the proposed new hospital at Romford will be built.

He said: "It appears that the promised new Oldchurch Hospital in Waterloo Road, Romford is disappearing even further into the distance.

"The latest news suggests that the multi-million pound deal, which is relying on private money to finance it, has not yet got the backing of a financial consortium and that process is now underway.

"That in itself can take many months. Then when a financial backer is eventually found more delays come in, as Havering Hospitals NHS Trust chief executive Peter Murphy has announced that it is the private sector financial partner which will 'design and build the new hospital and play a continuing role in managing its facilities.'

"That announcement causes me some concern as I would hope that the new hospital's design and future management would involve the medical staff who will be using it so that patients' interests are put first.

"Yes, the private sector financiers need to make a return on their money to encourage them to invest, but the top priority must be that the people of west Essex and East London get a hospital that meets their needs, provides them with the best possible health care and has facilities that allow modern procedures to be used."

Mr Pickles also attacks plans to merge the management of three hospitals - Oldchurch, Harold Wood and King George's in Ilford - into one NHS Trust from April.

He said: "We have seen that Havering Hospitals NHS Trust cannot properly manage admissions and services when it is running just two hospitals. So how they will cope with another major hospital under their jurisdiction is impossible to imagine.

"It appears to me that what we have here is empire building at its worst: moving management away from the person that matters most - the patient. I do not believe this merger will bring benefits to patients and wait to see whether hospital managers will be able to prove me wrong."

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