More than £3.6 billion is needed to fix the maintenance backlog in London hospitals, new figures revealed on Tuesday as the Government promised new funding for NHS infrastructure would be unveiled in the Budget.
Analysis of NHS Digital data by the Standard shows that the maintenance backlog in the capital stood at £3,696,133,145 as of April 2024, a rise of 15 per cent on the year before.
The backlog bill is a measure of how much cash is needed to restore buildings to a good state and refers to maintenance work that should already have taken place rather than any that is planned.
The figures showed the cost of “high risk” repairs waiting to be done in the capital was £1.15 billion, while £1.3 billion of repairs was classed as a “significant risk”.
Charing Cross Hospital, run by Imperial College NHS Trust, had the biggest “high risk” maintenance backlog in London with £186 million worth of repairs needed.
This was followed by St Mary’s hospital, which is also run by Imperial and requires £152 million worth of repairs.
The total bill to clear the backlog of all repairs needed at the Trust is now £874 million, the figures show.
At Hillingdon Hospital, the care of 23 patients was disrupted last year due to estate and infrastructure failures.
The Hillingdon Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, which operates the hospital, has said that 80 per cent of the building will require “major repair or replacement” soon.
Earlier this month, the Standard reported how Health Secretary Wes Streeting had confirmed that the hospital was among 25 building projects in the Conservatives’ New Hospital Programme that would now not go ahead due to funding concerns.
Mr Streeting had previously said the hospital was the “worst he had ever seen” and that it would be rebuilt under a Labour Government.
The figures come as ministers face growing pressure to commit to providing extra funding for NHS hospitals in the upcoming Budget.
On Monday, Chancellor Rachel Reeves announced that the Government would provide £1.57 billion for new surgical hubs, scanners and radiotherapy machines as part of Sir Keir Starmer’s pledge to deliver 40,000 more appointments each week.
Mr Streeting told the BBC that the package would include funding to double the number of diagnostic scanners with AI-enabled technology, which he claimed would reduce the number of staff needed to diagnose illnesses.
Further details of the spending plan will be unveiled in the House of Commons on Thursday.
Ms Reeves said the NHS was "the lifeblood of Britain" and that is why she is "putting an end to the neglect and underinvestment it has seen for over a decade".
“We will be known as the government that took the NHS from its worst crisis in its history, got it back on its feet again and made it fit for the bright future ahead of it," she said.
