THE £30 million needed to restore ‘crumbling’ buildings at Warrington and Halton Hospital shows why new hospitals are so ‘desperately needed’.

Latest NHS Digital figures show that £33.1 million is needed to restore buildings at the trust’s sites to a certain standard.

This work should have already taken place and covers everything from leaky gutters and faulty lifts to critical electrical and structural issues in hospital buildings. It does not include planned maintenance due to be undertaken.

Out of the money, £1.9 million is required to fix high risk issues, which NHS reports say must be addressed with urgent priority to prevent catastrophic failure, major disruption to clinical services, or safety deficiencies liable to cause serious injury.

The site needing the most work is Warrington Hospital with £22.7 million needed to complete all the necessary repairs.

A spokesperson for Warrington and Halton Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust (WHH) said that these figures show why new hospitals in Warrington and Halton are ‘so desperately needed’ and that like many NHS hospitals, it is faced with the challenging of maintaining an ageing estate.

They told the Warrington Guardian: “Like many NHS hospitals, we are faced with the challenge of maintaining a large, ageing estate.

“On a regular basis all the estate is risk-assessed, and an ongoing programme of repair and refurbishment is carried out according to its priority and ensuring that it safe.

“The costs referred to by NHS Digital are our backlog maintenance costs which are reported by every NHS trust annually.

“These backlog maintenance costs help to demonstrate why new hospitals in Warrington and Halton are so desperately needed.

“Significant funding is required to build new hospitals and the Trust continues to seek funding opportunities.”

The trust has said it is working hard to improve its facilities with expansions and other developments.

A spokesperson added: “In the meantime, we are working hard to improve the existing facilities to enhance the care we offer our patients.

“This includes the expansion of the Emergency Department, which is an ongoing development, of which the already opened Same Day Emergency Care Centre and an Emergency Department CT scanner are part of.

“Other developments include improvements to our maternity services and expansion of the MRI scanner building on the Warrington site, and at Halton we are building a Community Diagnostics Centre, a new operating theatre, and an Endoscopy Hub.”

It comes as across England, a growing number of NHS hospital buildings are in a poor state with the repair bill climbing to £11.6 billion last year.

Chief executive of NHS Providers Sir Julian Hartley said: "The cost of trying to patch up creaking buildings and out-of-date facilities is rocketing. Far too many NHS buildings and equipment are in a very bad way, and the situation is just getting worse.

"The safety of patients and staff is at stake. To provide first-class care, the NHS needs safe, efficient and reliable buildings, facilities and equipment."

In October, the Department for Health and Social Care confirmed 42 sites have reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete (Raac) and must be repaired, but none of these were at WHH.

Sir Julian said the presence of the collapse-risk concrete ‘is a symptom of a far bigger and long-running problem’.

"Many trusts – mental health, community, hospital and ambulance services – need major investment to refurbish ageing buildings and tackle risks to the safety of patients and staff," he added.

"We need the Government to shift gear and inject a significant shot in the arm of capital investment in the NHS."