Hospitals are facing a rising backlog of repairs and out-of-date equipment because NHS funds are being used to shore up frontline services.
The cost of outstanding maintenance work that hospitals in England need to do has reached £4.3bn, including £458m of “high-risk” repairs, which if left unaddressed could threaten patient safety. They include leaking roofs and out-of-date scanners.
At the same time the NHS’s capital budget, which pays for repairs and new equipment, has been cut by £1.1bn this year and the money used to hire staff and meet waiting time targets.
It was due to be £4.8bn but an analysis by the House of Commons Library, commissioned by Labour, found that the fine print of last week’s budget confirmed that it is now only £3.7bn.
Full story in The Guardian 20 March 2016