Thirty-four hospital buildings in England have roofs made of concrete so unstable they could collapse at any time, ministers have admitted.
The revelation has sparked renewed fears that the roofs of the affected hospitals could suddenly collapse, injuring staff and patients, and calls for urgent action to tackle the problem.
Maria Caulfield, the health minister, made the revelation in a written response to a parliamentary question asked by Liberal Democrat health spokeswoman Daisy Cooper.
Caulfield said surveys carried out by the NHS found that 34 buildings in 16 different health trusts contained reinforced autoclaved concrete (RACC), which one hospital boss has compared to an “Aero bar of chocolate”. RACC was widely used in the construction of hospitals and schools in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s, but it has a useful life of 30 years and is now causing serious problems.
In 2020, Simon Corben, director of estates at NHS England, stated that the RAAC tables presented a “significant safety risk” because their age meant they could fall without warning.
Caulfield’s admission means that more NHS facilities are at risk of RAAC than previously thought. Until now 13 trusts were believed to be affected, but the minister put that number at 16. Her response did not identify the 16 trusts affected or indicate how many of the “34 buildings containing RAAC planks” were hospitals where patients are treated.
However, the identities of some of the hospitals in question are already known, including Hinchingbrooke in Cambridgeshire, Frimley Park in Surrey and Airedale in Yorkshire.
“It is simply unthinkable that patients should be treated in buildings that could be at risk of collapse,” said Ed Davey, Lib Dem leader. “From record waiting lists to collapsing hospital roofs, patients are paying the price for years of Conservative neglect of our NHS.”
Several hospitals now have to use steel struts to hold the roofs up to reduce the risk of this happening. One, Queen Elizabeth in King’s Lynn, near the south-west Norfolk constituency of Conservative leadership candidate Liz Truss, is currently deploying no fewer than 1,500 supporters.
In a televised leadership debate with rival Rishi Sunak last month, Truss expressed concern about the large number of hospitals in England that had significant structural problems. “I’m afraid some of our hospitals are collapsing. The Queen Elizabeth in King’s Lynn, near me – bits of the hospital are held up on stilts. That’s not good enough for NHS patients,” he said.
Caroline Shaw, chief executive of the hospital, told the Sunday Times last month that “the roof is like an Aero bar of chocolate. There are bubbles in the concrete and we check it daily to make sure those bubbles don’t break and that the ceiling doesn’t come down. It really is like a ticking time bomb.”
He added: “For patients who are lying in bed and seeing these fixtures, it feels quite unsafe.” The hospital had to evacuate patients from its intensive care unit last year and transfer some to hospitals 40 miles away for fear the roof might collapse.
But Davey pointed out that Truss had been a member of recent governments that had resisted calls from NHS leaders for a major increase in the service’s capital budget to allow an overhaul of its aging, sometimes dangerously inadequate, estate.
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“It is outrageous that Liz Truss openly refers to her local constituency hospital being fitted with these ceilings, despite sitting in the Cabinet and being a senior member of successive Tory governments. The failing NHS record of this time government record waits and crumbling hospitals is also their record of failure,” he said.
Last year, a whistleblower at West Suffolk Hospital, which also has RACC boards, revealed to the BBC that it had commissioned a law firm to assess its risk of facing manslaughter charges corporate involuntary if a sudden roof collapse were fatal.
Hinchingbrooke last year banned patients weighing more than 19 stone from surgery in two of its operating theaters in case they put too much strain on the floor.
Pippa Heylings, a Lib Dem councilor in Cambridgeshire, said: “We want to see a health minister at our local hospital this week to see for herself and finally take urgent action.”
In his response, Caulfield told Cooper that the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) had set aside £110m “to mitigate the immediate risk” and that trusts would receive a further £575m to help. However, several of the trusts affected say it would be cheaper to build a new hospital than rebuild one with RACC.
A DHSC spokesman said: “We are taking action to improve health infrastructure across the country and have provided more than £4 billion for trusts to support local priorities, including to maintain and refurbish their facilities , and we have set aside more than £685 million to tackle issues directly related to the use of RAAC on the NHS estate.
“By 2030 we will have 40 new hospitals providing state-of-the-art facilities to ensure the delivery of first-class healthcare for NHS patients and staff by replacing outdated infrastructure.”