The ceilings leak, there are buckets to catch the water on the floor & lights don’t work...
– THEATRE NURSE ABIROSE CARDWELL
DESPERATE NHS staff have revealed they work in shocking “slum” conditions at hospitals hit by the failure of NHS outsourcing to private firms.
Nurses tell of flooded and tattered wards, leaking ceilings, broken lights, cancelled operations and fears for patient safety after the collapse of construction giant Carillion.
Fatcat bosses bankrolled by the Government pocketed millions of pounds from contracts to build and run hospitals, along with the accountancy companies who failed to flag up last January’s impending disaster.
But Carillion’s collapse left struggling NHS trusts hundreds of millions out of pocket.
Royal Liverpool Hospital is one of 14 affected. It flooded 10 times last year after the firm went bust, leaving a planned new building unfinished.
Staff had been due to move in a £430million relocation before work stopped last year.
Describing the conditions to bosses in a BBC documentary to be aired tonight, theatre nurse Abirose Cardwell said: “We go down to sit for a break and it’s like sitting in a slum. The ceilings are leaking, there’s buckets on the floor catching the water, the lights don’t work.”
Anaesthetic nurse Matt McGinn added:
“We’re concerned about patient care with so many systems failing on a regular basis.”
Footage comes from the fourth series of BBC2’s hit documentary series Hospital, filmed across Liverpool between October and December. Staff are shown having to make heartbreaking decisions to prioritise some patients over others. In the first episode patients come in after waiting four months for surgery. Medics have to prioritise each day which emergency operations they can carry out given the lack of staff and available beds.
Head vascular surgeon Professor John Brennan tells the programme: “It’s an impossible balance, there are too many patients trying to get in too small a resource.
“The hospital is full of people needing beds and, inevitably, something has to give – either people ending up staying for longer in A&E or we have to cancel cases.”
A&E staff work 12-hour days as they struggle to cope with the workload. The department was even shut down due to burst pipes.
Hospital bosses have to find £1million a year