Two million patients and 42,000 NHS staff at risk from crumbling hospitals

7 Sep 2023

EMBARGO: 00.01 Friday 8 September

Almost two million patients and 42,000 NHS staff are at risk from hospitals with unsafe concrete, shocking new research commissioned by the Liberal Democrats has revealed.

The House of Commons Library research shows that 1.9 million people live in the catchment areas of seven NHS hospital sites affected by reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete (RAAC). 43,000 NHS staff work at the affected hospital trusts, including over 11,500 nurses and 4,850 doctors.

The Liberal Democrats said it was a “national scandal” that so many patients live in areas with hospital buildings at risk of collapsing, warning this situation was a “disaster waiting to happen.”

University Hospital Southampton had the largest number with 468,295 patients living in its catchment area, followed by Blackpool Teaching Hospitals at 316,122 and the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in King’s Lynn with 249,000. Four of the hospital sites are classed as being ‘mostly composed of RAAC beams’.

The actual total number of people living in areas with unsafe hospitals will be even larger, as this analysis only included seven of the total 23 NHS trusts affected by RAAC. The Library excluded 11 NHS trusts which have multiple hospital sites from its analysis, as not all these sites will necessarily be affected by RAAC. A further five Trusts which are affected by RAAC have not yet been publicly identified.

Previous Freedom of Information requests by the Liberal Democrats revealed the identity of 18 NHS Trusts that have hospital buildings fitted with RAAC. This material is said to be ‘structurally weaker’, ‘lightweight’ and ‘cheaper’ than a regular fitting, with one NHS chief executive likening it to a “chocolate Aero bar” with bubbles that could break and collapse at any point.

The Liberal Democrats demanded emergency funding in the March Budget to replace the crumbling roofs at every affected hospital and prevent patients’ safety being put at risk. The party is now calling on Rishi Sunak to urgently boost funding to fix crumbling hospital buildings that are putting patients’ safety at risk.

Liberal Democrat Leader Ed Davey said:

“It is frankly a national scandal that so many people live in areas with hospital buildings at risk of collapse.

“Hard-working doctors and nurses were the heroes of the pandemic, and deserve better than to work in unsafe conditions under roofs at risk of collapse.

“This feels like a disaster waiting to happen with the NHS. The government must learn the lessons from their failure on crumbling schools and get these hospitals fixed as soon as possible. There is no time to waste when NHS staff and patient safety is a risk.

“Ministers cannot kick the can down the road any longer. The public will never forgive Conservative Ministers if they ignore another warning of public sector buildings falling apart.”

ENDS

Notes to Editor

Spreadsheet from the House of Commons Library including a breakdown by NHS hospital trust is available here.

A previous Freedom of Information Request by the Liberal Democrats found 18 NHS Trusts have hospital buildings fitted with reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete (RAAC). The FOI response from NHS England can be found here.

The National Audit Office report on the new Hospitals Building Programme is available here. The NAO report states that “surveys found 41 buildings at 23 trusts containing the material, including seven hospitals with RAAC present throughout.”

Research note from the House of Commons Library

You asked for information on staffing and catchment populations for the NHS hospitals affected by RAAC. As discussed, I agreed to provide information for the sites that have a single acute site, but not for those with multiple sites. This is because catchment and staffing data is only available for NHS trusts as a whole and not for individual hospitals.
Catchment populations are estimated by the Office for Health Improvement and Disparities. This is based on looking at the residential locations of people who are admitted to each trust’s hospitals. Each small area (“MSOA”) is assigned to the NHS trust that had the highest number of admissions from that MSOA in 2021-22. A trust’s catchment is the set of MSOAs assigned to it using this method, and the catchment population is the total population of these MSOAs.
NHS staffing figures are published by NHS Digital. I have used headcount figures here, which do not take into account whether staff work part-time or full-time. This is because the main interest is in the number of people affected.
Note that some hospitals are not affected by RAAC everywhere – meaning that not all staff or patients would be affected. In the attached spreadsheet I’ve included the classification from the Health Service Journal which indicates whether a site is “mostly composed of RAAC beams” or merely has “one or more buildings with RAA