An Important Milestone

In last week’s blog I mentioned the recent important survey undertaken by the British Medical Association. In this week’s 1 minute blog, I would like to pull out a couple of comments from the report. I have also listed the link below for anyone who is wishing to read the full report.

While the article is based on staff experience within all sectors of the NHS, it gives a stark overview of the state of the UK’s healthcare service where 43% of all doctors that responded to the survey stated that the condition of the workplace has a negative impact on patient care. The report goes on to state “Crumbling buildings and infrastructure often force wards and beds to close, compounding a wider lack of space across healthcare estates and contributing to ever-expanding waiting lists”. One respondent commented:

“The hospitals are disgusting. Paint peeling, ceilings leaking, break spaces revolting. Canteens tiny and gross. Woeful parking. Everyone is MISERABLE as a result and of course that leads to poor patient care.”

Concerningly, over 2/3rd of doctors stated that there was insufficient ventilation in place to assist with further waves of Covid 19. Unless something has dramatically changed over the last years, this indicates that there was insufficient ventilation during the initial waves of covid.

While the report does imply an impact to patient harm, there is no conclusive evidence that the level and quality of the estate caused harm to the patients. However, the report is very clear on the level and impact of the disruption caused by the infrastructure on the patient.

The report goes on to set out 29 recommendations. From immediately providing funds to clear existing backlog to doctors having greater involvement in capital planning, the report is very clear on the action that should be taken to improve the healthcare environment.

The last words in the report are “Governments must act now before it is too late”. However, I would argue that may already be there. In 2022 we saw the cost of eradicating backlog maintenance increase beyond the total annual capital envelope for the NHS. In order to ‘fix’ the problem in short order, most trusts would have to close down many sections of their hospitals to allow works to be undertaken. Given the extreme pressures the NHS are currently under, do we need to find a new solution?

https://www.bma.org.uk/media/6579/bma-infrastructure-1-report-brick-by-brick-estates-dec-2022.pdf