NHS hospitals have been pushed to “rack and ruin”, an investigation has revealed, with sewage leaking into wards and corridors and staff trapped in broken lifts.
A freedom of information probe by the Labour Party found that in 2018/19, at least 76 hospital trusts in England recorded incidents caused by “estates and infrastructure failures”, with repair bills mounting.
According to the party, the money needed to eradicate the backlog of ‘high risk’ maintenance issues in the NHS in England rose from £947 million in 2016/17 to more than £1 billion a year later.
Many of the incidents reported by hospital trusts – of which 170 replied – involved sewage, with faeces coming through the floor on the ultrasound corridor of one trust in Yorkshire and the Humber.
Waste also leaked into a West Midlands hospital ward after a pipe burst and 19 patients in the East Midlands were forced to share one shower after sewage came up through the bathroom drains and water flooded into the ward corridor.
Meanwhile, broken lifts at a trust in the South East meant immobile patients – some of whom needed urgent surgery – were unable to get upstairs. Two nurses were also trapped in a lift in a hospital in the North West.
Finally, on one occasion staff at a West Midlands Trusts were unable to keep newborn babies warm because the labour ward was so cold.
Shadow health secretary Jonathan Ashworth blamed “years of Tory cuts” for “pushing hospitals to rack and ruin”.
“The NHS now faces a staggering £6 billion repair bill, £3 billion of which is considered ‘high’ or ‘significant’ risk,” he said.
“Patients deserve to be treated in the very best quality health facilities with the most up to date equipment, and yet the Tories have utterly failed to invest in the infrastructure capital budgets.
“Only Labour will give the NHS the funding it needs.”
A Department of Health and Social Care spokesperson said: “We want patients to receive world-class care so we’re investing £3.9 billion to upgrade facilities, which is already improving A&Es, buying cutting edge technology and putting more beds on wards up and down the country.
“The NHS Long Term Plan, backed by an extra £33.9 billion a year by 2023/24, sets out ambitions to further modernise the health service over the next ten years and we will consider capital funding proposals from the NHS in the Spending Review later this year.”