After a media request by Maldon Nub News, NHS Mid and South Essex Integrated Health System responded to questions as to where a promised £20 million investment into a Maldon Health Hub has gone.

With the public consultation into closing Maldon's historic St Peter's Hospital ending on April 11, Maldon's community are keen to know whether a new health facility, promised since before 2002, will ever see construction.

A representative for the MSE Integrated Health System told Nub News: "The development of a new standalone health hub in Maldon, both now and in the past, would require the NHS to access a significant amount of capital funding from a third party – something we have not successfully been able to do."

Regarding the suitability of St Peter's Hospital, the IHS said: "The consultation document and other published information sets out the reasons why the ICB thinks the buildings at St Peter's Hospital are no longer suitable as a facility for modern healthcare services. 

"The first of our decisions will be an in-principle decision about continuing in the future to commission services from the St Peter's site. 

"We recognise this is an important decision that could lead to the eventual closure of St Peter's Hospital. That's why we're asking local people to share their thoughts and ideas through the consultation before we develop or consider firm proposals to relocate the services."

Consultation documents from 2002 show that the new Maldon Hospital was proposed to provide 49 rehabilitative and intermediate care beds, maternity services, x-ray services, therapy services, and a children's centre, to be built by December 2007. 

This consultation outlined age-related problems with St Peter's Hospital, over 20 years before MSE ICB's current consultation found the same age-related maintenance issues.

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These plans never came to fruition, and despite receiving a cash boost and appointing a project manager in 2016, they have never been carried out.

Now, Maldon faces losing its community hospital for good, with in-patient services to be moved across Essex and out-patient services to be relocated across Maldon if proposals by the ICB are carried out.

Feedback from this year's consultation is now being analysed by an independent research agency, which will produce a report for NHS Mid and South Essex Integrated Care System.

From this, a 'decision-making case' will be developed, for consideration by the local integrated care board.