St Mary’s Hospital unveils plans for an 800-bed tower in Paddington

Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust has released fresh designs for a rebuilt St Mary’s Hospital in Paddington. At their centre is a teaching hospital with 800 beds, which would also act as a major trauma centre. The trust is now collecting views from the public, and it aims to lodge a planning application in spring 2027.

Clinical services would be brought together in one taller block of about 30 storeys. Because the new building would cover less ground than the current hospital, land elsewhere on the estate would be freed up for other upgrades. The wider scheme would also grow the life sciences campus around the site.

Why St Mary’s Hospital needs rebuilding

Some parts of St Mary’s go back to 1845, which makes them older than the NHS, and they are in a poor state. Professor Julian Redhead, the trust’s chief executive, said “much of our estate is now very old and increasingly difficult to maintain”. He said buildings were failing more and more often, even though the trust spends millions on maintenance every year.

Under the government’s New Hospital Programme, all three Imperial hospitals, St Mary’s among them, sit in the last group of schemes due to be built. That timetable would leave the work unfinished until the 2040s. The trust is preparing its own application instead, and hopes to pair programme funding with money from other sources. If that works, it believes a new hospital could open by 2035.

Sky lobby and two new public squares

This is the third round of consultation on the designs, following two earlier ones. The latest version builds research space into clinical areas and makes arrival and drop-off points clearer. Flexible space is also included so the hospital could cope with a future emergency such as a pandemic.

A sky lobby on the 14th floor would join up the main clinical zones. It would hold a sky garden and a café, which the trust calls spaces “for rest and reflection”. At ground level the plans add two green public spaces named Mint Square and Canalside Square. The Grade II-listed Clarence Memorial Wing would be kept and restored.

The masterplan would also enlarge the Paddington Life Sciences campus, a cluster of businesses based around St Mary’s. According to an independent evaluation, the expansion could bring 9,000 to 11,000 more jobs and up to £1.3 billion a year in extra economic activity.