Figures suggest Preston Hospital repairs could be far higher

It would cost £100m more to carry out all of the maintenance work needed at the Royal Preston Hospital than official figures suggest.

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.

While that bill would be eye-watering enough, it is dwarfed by the £157m local NHS bosses have previously claimed would have to be invested to bring the facilities up to scratch.

The higher figure formed part of the so-called “case for change” made to the government in 2021, setting out the need for at least one new hospital to cover Central and Northern Lancashire.

The following year it was a key element of a bold – and ultimately successful – bid from the NHS in Lancashire and South Cumbria for the cash needed to build two brand new hospitals to replace both the Royal Preston and Royal Lancaster Infirmary.

The Local Democracy Reporting Service (LDRS) reveals the huge disparity between the two maintenance tallies amidst the government’s ongoing review of the nationwide new hospitals programme, which will determine whether the new-build facilities in Lancashire ever come to fruition.

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.

However, that distinction is unlikely to account for the chasm between the two calculations, because the total contained within the case for change document also refers to a “backlog” – indicating that it, too, is referring to work that is some way overdue.

The LDRS understands that 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 interrogated 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 damning 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.

“We have now reached a critical situation with the condition of some of the estate.  The depth and extent of problems…are unparalleled. [The three hospitals] make up some of the worst hospital estate in the North West, if not the country.”

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 LDRS approached LTH and the NHS Lancashire and South Cumbria Integrated Care Board for comment regarding the difference between the maintenance backlog estimates held by the NHS nationally and those reported in the case for change.

The ERIC system indicates LTH as a whole requires £69.5 million to undertake all of its overdue repairs, once the trust’s other facilities – which include Chorley and South Ribble Hospital – are also factored in.   Of that total, around £4.6 million is needed to address “high risk” repairs.

The cost of running LTH stood at £71.1 million last year.