The cost of maintenance work on England’s hospitals exceeded £1 billion last year, data shared by ministers has revealed. Some £1,013,000,000 was spent on maintaining the hospitals estate in the 2021/22 financial year, according to the NHS’s annual Estates Returns Information Collection.
This was up from £987 million in the previous year, and from £890 million in 2017/18. The information, shared by health minister Will Quince, appears to show investment in the backlog of maintenance has also risen dramatically.
Opposition parties criticised the Government for overseeing a “crumbling” NHS estate, with Labour questioning the future of the pledge to build 40 new hospitals as set out in the Tories’ 2019 election manifesto. Shadow health secretary Wes Streeting, who wrote to ministers requesting the costs, said: “Rishi Sunak appears to have ditched the 40 new hospitals pledge, adding one more failure to the Conservatives’ record of overpromising and underdelivering.
