Five-year fitness plan for NHS maintenance

THE backlog maintenance costs in the NHS have reduced by £62m over the last year, according to latest statistics.
The ‘State of the NHS Scotland Assets and Facilities Report 2012’, details the figures and will allow health boards to tackle maintenance costs across the estate.
Total maintenance figure is £948m, a reduction from over £1 billion last year. The total includes more than £360m worth of work needed in non-medical areas and buildings for sale which do not impact on patients and a backlog of £407m which has been assessed as high or significant risk.
Boards will tackle remaining high and significant risk backlog maintenance in clinical areas over the next five years through a combination of:
• Spending around £310m of capital funding on maintenance and undertaking specific projects to target the high and significant backlog
• Better use of buildings and disposal of older properties avoiding the need for expenditure on backlog
• Replacing older properties with new facilities and avoiding the need for expenditure on backlog.
Health secretary Alex Neil said: “This report will help us to improve Scotland’s hospitals and patients will see the benefits of new facilities across all areas, renovations to existing buildings and new, modern equipment.
“Last year, for the first time ever, we got a detailed account of the ongoing maintenance work needed on the NHS estate. This allowed health boards to continue to put in place action plans to maintain our NHS buildings and in the last year alone backlog maintenance has been reduced by £62m. Over the next five years boards will work to clear high and significant risk backlog in clinical areas altogether.”
A total of £2 billion of capital funding and £750m of NPD funding will be invested in new and existing NHS buildings over the spending review period.