Tens of millions needed to restore West Hertfordshire Hospitals NHS Trust buildings

West Hertfordshire Hospitals NHS Trust needs to spend more than £60 million to bring its buildings up to scratch.

Figures from NHS Digital show that at the end of March last year, West Hertfordshire Hospitals NHS Trust needed £68.6 million worth of work to eliminate the backlog of maintenance required at its sites.

The West Hertfordshire Hospitals NHS Trust says managing the response to Covid-19 has taken precedence over backlog maintenance that is not urgent and once the needs of the pandemic have reduced their impact on the estates team, they will review the backlog maintenance.

Of the total, £806,000 was needed to eradicate high-risk issues to avoid serious injuries to patients, major disruption to services or "catastrophic failure".

This included:- £511,000 at Watford General Hospital

- £229,000 at Hemel Hempstead General Hospital

- £65,900 at St Albans City Hospital

Around £19.1 million should have been spent on items posing a significant risk to safety or delivery of services.

High and significant backlog maintenance usually relates to essential activity.

Around £48.7 million was required for medium and low grade maintenance, which typically relates to improving the patient environment and can include the refurbishment and repainting of a building.

These sites at West Hertfordshire Hospitals NHS Trust require maintenance investment:

- Watford General Hospital: £37.3 million

- St Albans City Hospital: £15.7 million

- Hemel Hempstead General Hospital: £15.6 million

The figures also reveal the trust spent £3.2 million to cut its maintenance backlog in 2019-20.

In December, the Government announced a £600 million scheme to help trusts eradicate the backlog – with West Hertfordshire Hospitals NHS Trust awarded £4.1 million towards 16 projects.

Paddy Hennessy, West Hertfordshire Hospitals NHS Trust's director of environment, said: “The safety of our hospitals is our top priority and so we have been investing in maintenance work which is the most urgent.

“The figures quoted are nearly a year old. In the last 4 years, we have spent approximately £24m on backlog maintenance, of which approximately 60% has been used to address high/ significant risks.

"Note that the figures quoted do not actually reflect the true cost off addressing backlog maintenance, as the actual costs tend to be far higher.

“Managing our response to Covid-19 has taken precedence over backlog maintenance that is not urgent.

“Over the past year we have spent circa £2.5m to reconfigure the layout of many parts of Watford General Hospital to allow the safe expansion of critical care and to create areas where staff can put on and remove PPE in line with guidance.

“I would like to pay tribute to the huge efforts of our in-house maintenance team and outside contractors who all worked at an incredible pace to make these significant changes.

“When the needs of the pandemic have reduced their impact on our estates team, we will review the backlog maintenance and re-set our priorities.

“In the meantime, we would like to reassure readers that any issues that pose a real and present risk to staff and patients are always dealt with as a matter of urgency.”

Across England, £9 billion should have been spent on eradicating the backlog of maintenance work required across all NHS trusts. Of that, more than £1.5 billion was due for the most urgent repairs.

NHS Providers warned that the speed at which the NHS estate is falling into disrepair is putting patients' lives at greater risk and making it more difficult for frontline staff to provide the right quality of care.

Chris Hopson, chief executive of NHS Providers, said: "The backlog is now broadly equivalent to the annual cost of running the entire NHS estate.

"More worrying still, over half of this is for work of high or significant risk. In short, this problem poses an increasing threat to safety."

A spokesman for the Department of Health and Social Care said it is investing "record sums" to upgrade NHS buildings.

“Alongside funding to deliver 48 hospitals and 20 major hospital upgrades across the country, we are providing £600 million to tackle nearly 1,800 urgent maintenance projects across 178 trusts, he added."

"This is on top of the NHS’s existing capital budgets which are directed to local maintenance priorities.”