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Cramped and crumbling hospital buildings pose risk to patient safety – NHS bosses

Trust chief executives call on ministers to find urgent injection of capital funding 
Busy waiting area in hospital – NHS Providers calls for capital funding for trusts in England

Trust chief executives call on ministers to find urgent injection of capital funding 


Picture: Alamy

Lack of funding to upgrade NHS facilities risks jeopardising patients safety, senior trust managers say.

More than 160 out of 200 chief executives and chief finance officers told an NHS Providers survey that lack of capital funding poses a high or medium risk to patient safety.

Almost all (97%) respondents were worried about their trust's need for capital investment, while 94% fear it is affecting patients' experience of care.

Boris Johnson’s capital funding pledge ‘only a first down payment’

NHS Providers said the prime minister's recent capital spending announcement of £1.8 billion is merely a ‘first down payment’ for the NHS's needs.

The organisation is now calling on the government to commit to capital funding in the forthcoming spending round. It cited cramped conditions at Kettering General Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, which treats three times more patients than it was built to see.

‘Staff are trying to deliver care in buildings with leaky roofs and broken plumbing’


Chris Hopson, chief executive of
NHS Providers

NHS Providers chief executive, Chris Hopson, said buildings and equipment budgets have been relentlessly squeezed for years. He said the UK has fewer than half as many CT scanners as Latvia, Greece or Iceland, per head of population.

Mr Hopson said lack of funding for equipment and facilities could no longer be ignored. He added: ‘Paying for more doctors and nurses, newer treatments and more appointments and operations is vital,’ he said. ‘But what's the point if NHS staff are trying to deliver care in buildings with leaky roofs and broken plumbing?’

A Department of Health and Social Care spokesperson highlighted the promise of £1.8 billion for NHS facilities in England, adding: ‘More than £1 billion of this is available this year, bringing our capital spending limit for this financial year to more than £7 billion.’


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