Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps he has taken to prevent NHS staff from being evicted from staff accommodation due to redevelopment in the Diamond Estate at Springfield Hospital.

South West London and St George’s NHS Mental Health Trust is building new hospital buildings to provide the best possible environments to help patients recover from serious mental illness in a safe, modern setting. The trust is also building more than 800 new homes for local families, of which 20% are affordable, with future phases of up to 50% affordable homes, supporting people to work and stay within their communities.

To do this, the trust needed to make changes to its estate which resulted in some staff in residential accommodation needing to vacate the accommodation by the end of January 2023. In response, the trust worked closely with tenants to ensure they had adequate time to prepare for these changes and find new homes. In the months leading up to when formal notice was given in March 2022, the trust regularly engaged with and met with tenants, and through working with Wandsworth Borough Council, supported tenants to find new, suitable accommodation, including linking tenants in with several housing organisations which provide key worker accommodation. The trust will continue to help members of staff access the right support for them by signposting members of staff to local agencies.