MORE than £20m is needed to repair buildings at Barnsley Hospital amid warnings that the safety of patients and staff is being put at risk.
Recent figures from the NHS Estates Return Information Collection show £22.1m is needed to eradicate the backlog of maintenance needed on the Gawber facility’s buildings.
The backlog bill is a measure of how much cash is needed to restore buildings to a good state and refers to maintenance work that should already have taken place rather than any that is planned.
Saffron Cordery, deputy chief executive of NHS Providers, said: “Vital bits of the NHS are literally falling apart after years of under investment nationally.
“The safety of patients and staff is at risk.
“The list of essential repairs across the NHS waiting to be done keeps getting longer and the costs are rocketing. This can’t go on.
“Eye-watering sums are needed just to patch up buildings and equipment which are in a very bad way right across hospitals, mental health, community health and ambulance services.”
She said the government must provide an urgent capital funding boost and rethink rules on capital investment in the NHS so that trusts can tackle the maintenance backlog.
The data also shows the cost of tackling ‘high risk’ repairs, where maintenance must be addressed with ‘urgent priority’ to prevent catastrophic failure and major disruption, has risen 16 per cent to £2.7bn.
Barnsley Hospital needs about £2.6m to address the repairs at the highest risk.
Sarah Woolnough, chief executive of the King’s Fund, said: “While this data is provisional, it is already indicating a substantial leap in the cost and severity of maintenance issues with NHS buildings and equipment.
“This will ring alarm bells for the new government as it prepares for its first autumn budget.
“Such a sizeable backlog will be a significant obstacle to the NHS increasing productivity and delivering more value for taxpayers and better quality care for patients.
“But most worryingly it also poses an increasing safety risk to staff and patients.”
The figures show the total running cost of the NHS estate was £13.6bn.
The cost of running the Gawber Road site stood at £31.3m last year.
A Barnsley Hospital spokesperson told the Chronicle: “We continue to invest in developments, ward refurbishments and infrastructure upgrades with a focus on projects which improve patient and staff experience.
“Despite financial challenges which include historically high rates of inflation for materials and labour, we have been successful in reducing the total backlog maintenance costs from the previous year.”
