At least £40m of improvements must be made to Croydon University Hospital, if a neighbouring trust loses its accident and emergency (A&E) and maternity wards.

Maternity and A&E services could be cut from Croydon University, Epsom and St Helier or Kingston hospitals as part of South West London’s Better Services Better Value (BSBV) review.

Figures released as part of the review show £40.1m would need to be spent by 2016/17 on expanding and improving CUH should Epsom and St Helier, considered favourite for the closures, be picked.

Croydon Health Services NHS Trust, which is under pressure to make millions of pounds of savings every year, would not automatically be given the funding but would be required to bid for the money by presenting a working business case.

A spokesman for BSBV said the process would save millions of pounds.

He said: “The financial modelling is due to be re-run in August based on updated figures, so the numbers will change, but the initial financial appraisal in May suggested there would be a net overall gain to the taxpayer of around £19m per year if the planned care centre was at St Helier, a net gain of £6m to £8m per year if it was at Croydon and a net gain of £1m to £2.5m if it was at Kingston.

“The capital to achieve any necessary redevelopment on other hospital sites would come from a mixture of internally generated capital by the relevant Trusts and external capital to be provided by the Department of Health or other sources – the latter capital would be subject to the relevant approval processes.

“This is normal under any NHS service change programme.”

Croydon Health Services NHS Trust is building a £1.2m acute medical centre, and is planning an £11m refurbishment of Purley Hospital.

A Trust spokesman said the hospital would need a completely new building for maternity services, including a labour ward and birth centre, a joint paediatric and surgical unit to handle more paediatric assessment cases and developing the A&E department and critical care facilities to care for more patients.

She said: “In line with NHS London’s productivity analysis for acute hospitals, Croydon Health Services has to make about five per cent efficiency savings each year for the next five years.

The Trust is working with Croydon Clinical Commissioner Group/ NHS Croydon) to develop a programme in place for delivering these savings.”

Nick Hitchens at Croydonguardian