Tens of millions of needed to revamp South Tyneside hospital buildings

Hospital bosses in South Tyneside and Sunderland need to spend more than £30m to bring its buildings up to scratch, new figures reveal.
South Tyneside District HospitalSouth Tyneside District Hospital
South Tyneside District Hospital

South Tyneside and Sunderland NHS Foundation Trust, say it has a rolling programme of maintenance works - including some particularly ageing infrastructure – but none present any safety risk to patients or staff.

Figures from NHS Digital show that, at the end of March last year, the Trust needed £30.3m worth of work to eliminate the maintenance backlog at its sites.

This includes:

Steve JamiesonSteve Jamieson
Steve Jamieson

*£12.2m at South Tyneside District Hospital.

*£6.7m at Sunderland Royal Hospital.

*£6.3m at Sunderland Eye Infirmary.

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*£160,000 at St Benedict's Hospice (Monkwearmouth Hospital).

*Around £891,000 also needs to be spent across other sites, which are not listed in the data.

The figures also reveal the trust spent £1.9m to cut its maintenance backlog in 2019-20.

Steve Jamieson, the Trust's director of estates, said: “Like all NHS Trusts we have a rolling programme of maintenance works across all of our healthcare sites and this includes some particularly ageing infrastructure.

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"Whilst we do have some areas of works that are considered more ‘high risk’, such as replacement of drainage systems, roofing works and boiler/heating systems, none of these present any safety risk to our patients or staff and are regularly monitored through our robust governance processes.

“Given the financial challenges facing the NHS, like all Trusts we must prioritise the resource available to us and every year we have a rolling programme of investment to maintain our estate and infrastructure.

"We welcome the recent £1.796m received from Government to support ongoing maintenance of our buildings.”

He added: “As a Trust, we are committed to ensuring the best possible environment for our staff and patients by maximising the facilities and space we have available. This is something which is at the forefront of our Path to Excellence transformation programme and will require further capital investment in the years ahead to continue to improve our hospital facilities.”

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In December, the Government announced a £600m scheme to help trusts eradicate the backlog – with South Tyneside and Sunderland NHS Foundation Trust awarded £1.8 million towards 22 projects.

Overall, it cost £9.7 billion to run the entire NHS estate in the last financial year, the figures show.

Chris Hopson, chief executive of NHS Providers, said the maintenance backlog is now broadly equivalent to the annual cost of running the entire NHS estate.

He added: “Our members have also been telling us how difficult it is proving to expand capacity at pace and ensure high quality infection control in old, outdated buildings.

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“Unfortunately it is patients and service users who are paying the price for this backlog."

A spokesman for the Department of Health and Social Care said The Government is investing "record sums" to upgrade NHS buildings.

He said: “Alongside funding to deliver 48 hospitals and 20 major hospital upgrades across the country, we are providing £600m to tackle nearly 1,800 urgent maintenance projects across 178 trusts.

"This is on top of the NHS’s existing capital budgets which are directed to local maintenance priorities.”