MORE than £150 million needs to be spent to bring hospital buildings in the district up to scratch, figures have revealed.

NHS Providers warned that the speed at which the NHS estate is falling into disrepair is putting patients’ lives at greater risk and making it more difficult for frontline staff to provide the right quality of care.

Chief executive Chris Hopson said the backlog is now “broadly equivalent to the annual cost of running the entire NHS estate”.

He added: “More worrying still, over half of this is for work of high or significant risk. In short, this problem poses an increasing threat to safety.”

The NHS Digital figures show that at the end of March last year, Bradford Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust needed £64.7 million worth of work to eliminate the backlog of maintenance required at its sites. Of the total, £374,000 was needed to eradicate high-risk issues to avoid serious injuries to patients, major disruption to services or “catastrophic failure” at Bradford Royal Infirmary. Around £16.7 million should have been spent on items posing a significant risk to safety or delivery of services.

High and significant backlog maintenance usually relates to essential activity, such as replacing a backup generator. Around £47.7 million was required for medium and low grade maintenance, which typically relates to improving the patient environment and can include the refurbishment and repainting of a building.

Bradford Royal Infirmary required £37.5 million of maintenance investment, while St Luke’s Hospital required £27.3 million.

Meanwhile, Airedale NHS Foundation Trust needed £43.7 million worth of work to eliminate the backlog of maintenance. Of the total, £13.6 million was needed for high-risk issues at Airedale General Hospital.

Around £1 million should have been spent on items posing a significant risk to safety or delivery of services, while around £29 million was required for medium and low grade maintenance.

Bradford District Care Trust needed £50 million worth of work, according to the figures, with £2.3 million needed to eradicate high-risk issues. Most of that spending is required at Lynfield Mount Hospital.

In December, the Government announced a £600 million scheme to help trusts eradicate the backlog. The Bradford District Care NHS Foundation Trust was awarded £10,000 towards one project; Bradford Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust was awarded £1.5 million towards a project and Airedale was awarded awarded £1.7 million towards 19 projects.

Across England, £9 billion should have been spent on eradicating the backlog of maintenance work required across all NHS trusts.

Of that, more than £1.5 billion was due for the most urgent repairs.

Overall, it cost £9.7 billion to run the entire NHS estate in the last financial year, the figures show.

A spokesman for the Department of Health and Social Care said it is investing “record sums” to upgrade NHS buildings.

“Alongside funding to deliver 48 hospitals and 20 major hospital upgrades across the country, we are providing £600 million to tackle nearly 1,800 urgent maintenance projects across 178 trusts,” he added.

“This is on top of the NHS’s existing capital budgets which are directed to local maintenance priorities.”