NHS ‘needs £1bn of urgent repairs’
‘High-risk’ delays risking catastrophe
HEALTH: More than £1bn of urgent repairs need to be carried out across the NHS in order to prevent “catastrophic” failures and risk to safety, figures show.
Data which has been released by NHS Digital has revealed the extent of the maintenance backlog across NHS properties in England.
MORE THAN £1bn of urgent repairs need to be carried out across the NHS in order to prevent “catastrophic” failures and risk to safety, figures show.
Data released by NHS Digital has revealed the extent of the maintenance backlog across NHS properties in England.
NHS trusts are sitting on a record high backlog of almost £6bn of repairs or replacements which should have been carried out on their buildings and equipment.
Around £1bn of the outstanding jobs are classed as “high-risk” repairs, the data shows.
This means they could cause “catastrophic failure, major disruption to clinical services or deficiencies in safety liable to cause serious injury and prosecution” if not addressed immediately.
Examples of maintenance required could include upgrading software on medical equipment, maintaining generators and boilers, and ensuring the structural integrity of buildings.
According to the data, which covers the 12 months to March, there were 17,900 incidents across England in which patients were either harmed or put at risk of harm as a result of infrastructure problems. This is an increase of 800 in a year. Clinical services were delayed, cancelled or otherwise affected because of problems with buildings or facilities on 3,835 occasions – an increase of 1,500.
Chaand Nagpaul, chairman of council at the British Medical Association, said there was an “urgent” need for an injection of capital funding to address the NHS’s “impoverished infrastructure”.
Siva Anandaciva, chief analyst at health think-tank the King’s Fund, added: “Continued underinvestment has left some hospitals delivering healthcare in buildings that are quite literally falling apart.
“Deteriorating facilities and unreliable equipment can expose staff and patients to increasing safety risks, and make NHS services less productive as operations and appointments may be cancelled at short notice.”
A spokesman for the Department of Health and Social Care said investment to tackle maintenance work had increased by 25 per cent in a year.
He said: “We want patients to continue to receive world-class care in world-class facilities, which is why our long-term plan for the NHS will boost funding by £20.5bn a year extra by 2023/24.
“We are also investing £3.9bn into the NHS to help transform and modernise buildings, and improve patient care in hospitals and communities.”
NHS providers say years of financial pressure have taken a toll.
Underinvestment has left some hospitals ... falling apart. Siva Anandaciva, chief analyst at health thinktank the King’s Fund