Trusts need hundreds of millions to stop hospitals’ roofs collapsing

A series of freedom of information requests submitted by New Civil Engineer has revealed five of the worst affected trusts have applied for £331.9m of additional funding to be spent on fixing reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete planks during the next three years.

Queen Elizabeth Hospital King’s Lynn Foundation Trust has applied for the most funding, asking NHS England for £110m to cover remediation costs up until 2025 at the Queen Elizabeth hospital.

The other four trusts are North West Anglia FT, which has applied for £89.9m; West Suffolk Trust, which has applied for £64.7m; Mid Cheshire Hospitals FT, which has applied for £51.1m; and Frimley Health FT, which has applied for £15.6m.

At the QEHKL, which is in prime minister Liz Truss’ constituency, 1,500 steel props are holding up the roof in 56 different areas, while a team of 12 maintenance staff check the building’s safety 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

The trust has applied for £90m between 2022-23 and 2024-25 for a rolling programme of failsafes to be installed across the entire first floor of the hospital – six wards and its theatres. NHSE has agreed to pay £80.6m over the three years, starting with £30.6m paid this financial year.

This comes in addition to £20.6m emergency capital funding the Queen Elizabeth Hospital received from NHSE in 2021-22 which was partly used to refurbish two wards, install failsafes to reduce risk from RAAC failures and provide the necessary ward and decant space for the forthcoming rolling programme of failsafes.

Despite plans for remediation being drawn up, the trust ideally wants to tear down the current hospital and build a new one. It has submitted a separate bid for £862m to the Department of Health and Social Care for the new hospital proposal.

A trust spokesperson told NCE: “A new QEH is the only long-term sustainable solution to solving the well-documented and significant challenges the trust faces.”

Meanwhile, two of NWAFT’s three hospitals – Hinchingbrooke and Stamford & Rutland – are affected by RAAC issues. In June 2021, it released a report saying it could not treat heavier patients in part of Hinchingbrooke Hospital due to RAAC concerns. It has applied for £89.9m to deal with the issues, including £52m in the current financial year. NHSE has initially only agreed to release £39.9m of the £52m for 2022-23, but the trust has made a further application for the £12.1m shortfall and is awaiting a response.

West Suffolk Hospital in Bury St Edmunds has at least two known RAAC roofs. West Suffolk Trust has applied to NHSE for £64.7m between 2020-21 and 2022-23, including £30m in the current financial year, to help mitigate the issue.

Mid Cheshire Hospitals FT, which runs Leighton Hospital in Crewe, has estimated it will take a decade and £660m to replace the building’s 34,000 RAAC planks. It has applied to the DHSC for funding to completely rebuild the hospital, as it believes it would be quicker and cheaper. In the meantime, it has applied for £51.1m emergency funding over two years to mitigate the RAAC issues.

Frimley Health FT has made the relatively small appeal for £15.6m over two years to deal with RAAC concerns in Frimley Park Hospital. However, the RAAC situation in the hospital is so severe it is separately bidding for a £1.26bn revamp of the entire building.

An FOI response from University Hospital Southampton FT revealed it is dealing with RAAC but has not applied for funds from NHSE, as it is a relatively small amount and the building is to be refurbished in the next few years.

In response to NCE’s FOI investigation, Liberal Democrat deputy leader and health spokesperson Daisy Cooper said “patients are paying the price for years of neglect” by successive governments.

“All of these hospitals are in constituencies held by Conservative MPs, including Michael Gove and none other than the ex-health [secretary] himself, Matt Hancock,” Cooper said.

“It is truly shocking that patients are being treated in crumbling buildings that could be at risk of collapse. The NHS is crying out for the funds to fix creaking roofs so that patients can be treated safely. The public needs to know that the funds to fix this are on the way as soon as possible.”

Money applied for by RAAC-affected trusts that have responded to Freedom of Information requests:

Thirteen more hospitals in 12 foundation trusts are dealing with RAAC issues. The DHSC has admitted this number could rise as trusts identify more sites that are affected.

NHSE does not expect to eradicate RAAC from NHS hospitals until 2035. The NHS has started carrying out simulations of evacuations should a roof collapse. In that event, a national incident would be declared, forcing patients and services to be moved to other parts of the country.

The DHSC provided £110m of ring-fenced cash to deal with the immediate RAAC issues in 2021-22 and has committed to providing another £575m to trusts during the current spending review period, which runs to the end of the 2024-25 financial year.

A spokesperson for structural safety body Cross – which raised an alert on the problem in 2019 – said it was pleased the issue was finally being addressed.

The spokesperson said: “The scale of the problem has become clear with many buildings been found to contain RAAC roof planks…

“Where systemic faults occur they can affect very many buildings and in the case of the hospitals this means that very large numbers of roofs are having to be investigated and in many cases repaired or replaced. Hospitals are particularly difficult to deal with because of the disruption to patients and staff, and the consequential difficulties with services and complex equipment.”

A DHSC spokesperson added: “The government is publicly committed to eradicating RAAC from the NHS estate by 2035 and protecting patient and staff safety in the interim period, with the NHS approaching this on a risk basis prioritising NHS trusts of concern.

“We are providing more than £4bn for trusts to support local priorities, including to maintain and refurbish their premises, as well as over £685m to directly address urgent risks relating to the use of [RAAC] in the NHS estate.”