Unions highlight poor state of buildings

The government’s failure to fix NHS buildings is putting patients and staff at risk, say health unions.

UNISON public services union head of health Helga Pile said that “government cuts have left NHS premises in a dire state” and “the repair backlog keeps growing”.

Pile was responding to a report by NHS Providers, the membership organisation for NHS trusts in England, showing that delays to the government’s new hospitals programme are harming patients.

NHS Providers reported that the NHS repairs bill is now at a “staggering” £11.6 billion, “much of it high risk”.

“Ministers are failing to plan and finance critical upgrades to buildings across the NHS, leaving trusts with huge bills and hospitals in no fit state to deliver modern healthcare,” Pile said.

And RCN nurses’ union executive director Patricia Marquis said that nursing staff report risks to their own safety and that of their patients from working in outdated buildings.

Meanwhile, in a poll of over 1,000 parents in England commissioned by the NEU education union, half said the state of school buildings was having a negative impact on their children’s education.

More than a third believe the school buildings their children attend are too cold in winter, and 28% believe they are too hot in summer, “among a host of other issues”.

The NEU-led Stop School Cuts coalition is calling on politicians to properly commit and prioritise to restoring school funding.