Hospital repair bill '£100m higher than estimate'

The estimated £157m repair bill was based on an externally-commissioned survey

It will cost £100m more to carry out all of the maintenance work needed at Royal Preston Hospital than official figures suggest, according to a new report.

The most recent national NHS statistics show £57.7m would be required to clear the repair backlog that has built up at the ageing Sharoe Green Lane site.

But that's dwarfed by the £157m local NHS bosses have previously claimed would have to be invested to bring the facilities up to scratch.

It comes as the government’s reviewing plans to build new hospitals - including two in Lancashire.

The hospital was largely built between the mid-1970s and early 1980s

The £57m figure is a provisional one emanating from the NHS Estates Return Information Collection (ERIC) – published by the Press Association – which is a measure of how much funding would be needed to restore a hospital trust’s buildings to “a good state”.  

It estimates the cost only of maintenance work that should already have taken place, rather than any that is planned for the future.

The estimated £157m repair bill was based on an externally-commissioned survey, undertaken on behalf of the NHS in Lancashire and South Cumbria, which amounted to a more comprehensive assessment of the Royal Preston’s estate than that generated by the data which is fed into ERIC.

The case for change looked at six elements of the Fulwood site – its physical condition, suitability, overall quality, ability to comply with statutory rules, environmental management and disabled access.

The report’s conclusion – drawn collectively about the Royal Preston, Royal Lancaster and Furness General hospitals – was that the estate “is falling down”.

It added: "We must tell the truth about that. We cannot deliver 20th Century - let alone 21st Century - care in these conditions."

Even if the new Labour government’s review of the previous Tory administration’s new hospitals programme gives the green light to a new Royal Preston, former Conservative ministers had already pushed back the planned opening date for the new facility back to the mid-2030s from a previous target of 2030.

Last year, in the wake of that announcement, the then-chief executive of Lancashire Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust (LTH), which runs the Royal Preston, told a board meeting that the current hospital would continue to receive investment “in an appropriate way”.

However, Kevin McGee also warned of the eventual need to address the question of “just how much we invest” in the estate, which was largely built between the mid-1970s and early 1980s.

The Local Democracy Reporting Service approached LTH and the NHS Lancashire and South Cumbria Integrated Care Board for comment.