GRAND plans to build a super hospital in Sutton have been left in ruins after the Secretary of State for Health, Patricia Hewitt, withdrew her decision to build a critical care centre at St Helier.

The announcement, which has been branded "astonishing" and "shameful" by a pressure group and an MP, came just eight months after Ms Hewitt personally overruled NHS staff working on the Better Healthcare Closer to Home proposals and scrapped the plan to build the new facilities next to the Royal Marsden Hospital in Belmont.

Her decision, she said, had been taken to address the greatest need and greatest health inequalities in the local area.

But earlier this year, Ms Hewitt received a report concerning the planning and other legal restrictions affecting the land at St Helier. It concluded that any attempt to remove the restrictive covenants on the Metropolitan Open Land (MOL) opposite the existing hospital or to obtain planning permission would be highly risky with little chance of a successful outcome.

In response Ms Hewitt withdrew her decision last week and said a review would be conducted by NHS London in consultation with other stakeholders.

Geoff Martin, a Unison official and head of campaigns for pressure group London Health Emergency, said a huge chunk of Surrey and south west London could be left with no major hospital facilities forcing patients to travel unsafe distances for emergency health care.

He said: "We have suspected for some time that the plans for a new critical care hospital to replace Epsom and St Helier would be abandoned. The Government have now paved the way for the scheme to be scrapped leaving us with nothing other than the crumbling and condemned buildings at St Helier."

Tom Brake, the MP for Carshalton and Wallington, said he was "astonished" Ms Hewitt had not conducted further research into what could and could not be built on the MOL.

"This is a real setback, not only for St Helier but the whole of the NHS locally. Plans for a critical care hospital have been damaged and the financial difficulties in the local NHS means Sutton might not get a new acute hospital. This is a disaster for residents."

Lorraine Clifton, chief executive of Epsom and St Helier University Hospitals NHS Trust, said particular attention would be paid to the needs of the most disadvantaged communities while the review was carried out.