NHS' crumbling hospitals mapped - see if your local is affected
A new map puts into stark relief the state of the NHS and its billion pound problem, documenting the crumbling hospitals up and down the country, in desperate need of replacing.
Reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete is an air bubble filled material that was popular between the 1960s and 80s.
It was once used in schools and hospitals because it was a cheap, lightweight and fireproof alternative to normal concrete, but it later emerged that due to its structure, it had a limited lifespan.
Vulnerable to environmental wear and tear, RAAC would become compromised and experts have warned it’s a “ticking time bomb”.
In 2018, a school roof made of RAAC collapsed, fortunately over a weekend - when the classrooms were empty, prompting fears a tragedy might take place in a busy hospital or during a packed lesson.
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Caroline Shaw, speaking as then chief executive of the Queen Elizabeth NHS Foundation Trust said: “The roof [RAAC] is like a chocolate Aero bar. There are bubbles in the concrete and we’re checking it daily to make sure those bubbles don’t break, and the roof doesn’t come down. It really is like a ticking time bomb.”
The Mirror exclusively revealed the names of the 32 NHS hospitals and buildings built using RAAC.
These were spread across 19 separate sites - seven of which were hospitals “made nearly exclusively” of the “time bomb” concrete.
Now these have been mapped, so ordinary Brits can check if their local hospital is effected and made of the “chocolate aero” material.
The use of RAAC will leave the NHS with a multi-billion-pound bill during a time where finances are more squeezed than ever
The issues have been known about for years, but critics claim that after a decade of Tory underfunding, a permanent solution is still far in the future.
The situation is so bad that one hospital has deployed over 3,000 steel props to keep the roof up in 56 areas.
Some trusts have turned to thousands of trusts to keep their hospital roofs held aloft
One school roof, made of RAAC, collapsed in 2018, heightening fears that the same may happen in a busy hospitalOthers have introduced weight limits to operating theatres, whilst a document released by West Suffolk NHS Foundation Trust said the NHS was flying in the dark using RAAC planks beyond their life-span, saying: “There is no published information regarding the performance of RAAC planks past the intended design life.”
Of the 19 sites affected, ten of those trusts have applied for money totalling in excess of £1 billion - but the final economic cost of RAAC on the NHS is likely to be far in excess of this.
What makes things worse, is that whilst trusts wait for effective help that will properly solve the issue, they’re forced to splash millions on temporary sticking plasters.
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West Suffolk NHS Foundation Trust were forced to spend £74 million just shoring up the hospital instead of properly dealing with RAAC.
Craig Black, speaking as then interim chief executive, said: “We are spending public money on making a building safe that is only going to last for a few years.
One expert told the Mirror that RAAC was 'mostly voids' and it has been compared to chocolate Aero (stock image) (Getty Images/iStockphoto)“I don’t skip home when I get told we have just been allocated £25m to spend on RAAC - £25m is a massive amount of money that could do some huge good for patient care. Instead we are spending that on shoring up a building that needs replacement. That’s not great.”
This sentiment was echoed by James Summer, chief exec of Liverpool University Hospitals, who told Cheshire East Council’s scrutiny committee that Leighton Hospital faced a similar problem of spending huge sums now, or even more further down the line.
He outlined three choices that he believed his trust had to replace the 34,000 RAAC planks in the hospital.
Replacing the tens of thousands of planks themselves would cost £660 million and take a decade to complete; replace the roof panels and build extra wards, costing £800 million, or build a new hospital entirely costing £600 million.
Caroline Shaw, ex-NHS chief exec, warned the concrete was a 'ticking time bomb' (Men)Three operating theatres at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital King’s Lynn had to be shut after staff noticed the ceiling itself was moving.
Similarly, at Hinchingbrooke Hospital in Cambridge, two operating theatres were temporarily shuttered to patients heavier than 120kg.
After the Mirror’s initial revelation on how widespread a problem RAAC was, a recent report from the National Audit Office actually uncovered a handful of more cases of its use in hospitals.
It isn’t known where these are but a further nine buildings are said to be affected.
Worryingly for health chiefs, the new report estimated that the costs for replacing the seven hospitals mostly built with RAAC would “average over £1 billion per scheme”.
The Mott MacDonald report in April last year warned that the RAAC hospitals need to be rebuilt by 2030 - putting a worrying countdown on efforts to deal with the problem.
Things are so bad at the trust that a board risk report from November 2019 ranks the RAAC risk at 20 (likely catastrophic harm) when the aim for the rank is to be at just four.
And despite government assurances, board papers show that from 2006 until at least last year, there has been a "risk that the trust will not be able to secure the required level of capital funding to address the critical and urgent works required to address" the problems caused up by RAAC.
Matthew Byatt, President Elect of the Institution of Structural Engineers told the Mirror that RAAC is not just weaker than traditional concrete, but also more susceptible to wear and tear.
RAAC is particularly vulnerable to environmental wear and tear and water which can severely weaken its integrity compared to normal concrete (Alan Johnston partnership)He warned: “RAAC roof slabs can, and have, collapsed with little or no warning.”
Like others, he compared its structure to chocolate Aero and said this made it 80 per cent voids, which made bonding to reinforcements very difficult, and made it more susceptible to environmental damage, like water.
A Department of Health and Social Care spokesperson previously said: “The government is allocating funding annually for the removal of Reinforced Autoclaved Aerated Concrete (RAAC), based on NHS trust plans and delivery progress. We are unable to confirm the final spending amount for 22/23 until the end of the financial year, and specific funding for future years has not yet been finalised.
“We have committed to eradicate RAAC from the NHS estate by 2035 and are protecting patient and staff safety in the interim period, including investing over £685 million to directly address urgent risks.”
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