The Department of Health and Social Care and Department of Education have announced that £1.2 billion of funding would be supplied for repairs to hospitals and schools. Of this, £750 million will go to hospitals, mental health units and ambulance sites to fix structural problems such as leaky pipes and electrical issues.
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‘A decade and a half of underinvestment left hospitals crumbling, with burst pipes flooding emergency departments, faulty electrical systems shutting down operating theatres, and mothers giving birth in outdated facilities that lack basic dignity,’ said Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, Wes Streeting. ‘We are on a mission to rebuild our NHS through investment and modernisation.’
While health leaders welcome the investment, there have been warnings that this will not be enough to remedy years of neglect. The investment could help alleviate some of the issues in the hospital maintenance backlog, which have been found to precede as many as 4,000 service disruptions in 2023/24. However, health leaders claim that this might not be enough to completely fix the maintenance issues required by hospital buildings, and that the backlog stretches far beyond what £750 million can realistically repair.
‘[This] is a small down payment on the £14 billion maintenance backlog that remains. At £750 million a year, it would take almost 20 years to clear the backlog, assuming it does not continue to grow,’ said Matthew Taylor, Chief Executive of the NHS Confederation. ‘In the meantime, our members are committed to exploring other ways of raising the capital investment needed. To significantly improve capacity and ensure healthcare facilities in the NHS are efficient and fit for purpose, the forthcoming Spending Review needs to address the capital funding gap of at least £3.3 billion a year. It must also give the NHS the ability to secure additional investment over and above this through private investors and the adoption of a new model of private investment.’