Rising NHS cost to tackle urgent repairs
HOSPITALS in Leicestershire need to spend £7m on urgent repairs to prevent ‘catastrophic failures’ and ‘major disruption’ - EIGHT times what was needed a year before.
Trusts across Leicestershire reported the cost to eradicate their high risk maintenance backlog was £6.9m in 2016/17, up by 717% from £840,062 in 2015/16.
These are repairs/replacements that must be addressed with urgent priority in order to prevent catastrophic failure, major disruption to clinical services or deficiencies in safety liable to cause serious injury and/or prosecution.
A further £6.1m was needed to eradicate significant risk issues - repairs/replacements that require priority management and expenditure in the short term so as not to cause undue concern to statutory enforcement bodies or risk to healthcare delivery or safety. This is down 1% from £6.2m in 2015/16.
The total cost to eradicate main- tenance backlogs was £77.9m in 2016/17, an increase of 4% on the £75.2m reported in 2015/16.
At Leicester Royal Infirmary, 47% of patient occupied space was deemed not functionally suitable in 2016/17, the same as in 2015/16.
The hospital reported it needed to spend £3.9m to tackle the high risk maintenance backlog, the highest total in the area, a 509% rise from £633,558 in 2015/16, as well as £2.9m on the significant risk backlog.
Leicester General Hospital reported in 2016/17 that it needed to spend £1.9m on its high risk backlog, the second highest total in the area, with 30% of patient occupied space deemed not functionally suitable.
The cost has risen by 1,071% in a year from the £162,233reported for 2015/16.
Glenfield Hospital, has seen the biggest increase locally in the cost of tackling its high risk maintenance backlog, up 2,385% from £44,271 in 2015/16 to £1.1m in 2016/17.
NHS trusts across England have reported that they needed to spend £947.1m in 2016/17 to tackle the high risk maintenance backlog. The cost was up by a fifth (22%) in a year, from £775.5m in 2015/16.
A further £1.8bn was needed to eradicate significant risk issues, which has also worsened since 2015/16, when £1.6bn was needed for significant risks, a 14% rise.
The total cost to eradicate maintenance backlogs was £5.5bn in 2016/17, an increase of 11.5% on that reported in 2015/16.
This is a measure of how much would need to be invested to restore a building to a certain state based on a state of assessed risk criteria. It does not include planned maintenance work, rather, according to NHS Digital, which publishes the figures, it is work that should already have taken place.
The data comes from returns by NHS hospitals, who are asked each year about the current state of their estates.
Not functionally suitable space is defined as being below Estate- code Condition B for functional suitability (i.e. below an acceptable standard, or unacceptable in its present condition, or so below standard that nothing but a total rebuild will suffice).
However, the degree to which space is unsuitable will vary, some will be largely effective for patient care but fail to meet best practice standards, for example the amount of space around beds, while others may be in urgent need of major remedial work.
The standards cover things such as space, layout and design as well as the availability of toilets and storage space, and the suitability of office space.
However, the backlog maintenance costs relate only to assets that involve achieving condition B for physical condition, fire safety and statutory safety legislation relevant to the built environment.
Costs to achieve condition B relating to other aspects such as functional suitability, space utilisation, and environmental are not classified as backlog maintenance costs.