Raac is less durable than reinforced concrete as the “bubbly” structure can let water in, weakening the building material which can crumble and collapse. <\/p>\n
All of the seven “prioritised” schemes to replace Raac now won’t be completed until 2032-33 and with “significant operational and clinical risk and cost “, says the NAO.<\/p>\n
In the meantime, hospitals including the West Suffolk Hospital in Bury St Edmunds and The Queen Elizabeth Hospitals in Kings Lynn are facing huge maintenance bills to keep their sites open. <\/p>\n
By 2025 the seven hospitals will have required more than \u00a3500 million of investment to prevent structural failure.<\/p>\n
The NHS aims to remove all Raac concrete from its estate by 2035. The Department for Health and Social Care says so far there are 20 sites where it has been eradicated and that it is investing \u00a31.6 billion across the next four years. <\/p>\n
Chair of the Public Accounts Committee Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown says the delays in addressing crumbling Raac must now be addressed “as a matter of urgency.”<\/p>\n
But the report warns that there is a tight construction schedule overall with little contingency in the next five years, so delivery dates could slip further.<\/p>\n
Mr Tim Mitchell, President of the Royal College of Surgeons of England, said: “A steadier plan is better than drifting, but patients cannot wait a decade for capacity that we need now. <\/p>\n
“NHS trusts will be pouring scarce funds into patching up old buildings for longer, when that money should be used to create extra operating theatres, securing ring\u2011fenced beds and making sure that there is enough staff to run them.”<\/p>\n
A spokesperson for the Department of Health and Social Care said: “We’ve confirmed a sustainable funding plan and an achievable timetable to deliver all schemes in the programme. We are now getting on with building these much-needed facilities as quickly as possible.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Raac is less durable than reinforced concrete as the “bubbly” structure can let water in, weakening the building…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":372729,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[49,50,51,47,52,48],"class_list":["post-372728","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/372728","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=372728"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/372728\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/372729"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=372728"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=372728"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=372728"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}