MILLIONS of pounds worth of repairs needed to be carried out at hospital trusts in order to bring its facilities up to scratch.

Data released by NHS Digital has revealed the extent of the maintenance backlog across NHS property and facilities in England at the end of 2017/18, with the British Medical Association warning it is having an impact on patient care.

At the end of the last financial year, East Lancs Hospitals Trust was sitting on a backlog of £16.5 million.

This means they could have caused "catastrophic failure, major disruption to clinical services or deficiencies in safety liable to cause serious injury and prosecution" if not addressed immediately.

And Lancashire Care NHS Foundation Trust had £8.5 million worth of repairs or replacements which should have been carried out on its buildings and equipment.

Around £141,000 worth of the outstanding jobs were classed as 'high risk' repairs but these have since been completed.

The cost of "significant risk" repairs - those that could pose a risk to safety or disrupt the delivery of care if not prioritised soon - was £3 million.

According to the data, which covers the 12 months to March, problems with ELHT's infrastructure led to 511 incidents where patients were either harmed or put at risk of harm, compared to 66 for LCFT.

There were 17,900 incidents across England during the same period, an increase of 800 in a year.

Clinical services were delayed, cancelled or otherwise affected because of problems with ELHT buildings or facilities on 491 occasions.

James Maguire, divisional director of estates and facilities at ELHT, said: “The trust is currently investing £25 million over three years which will vastly reduce any outstanding maintenance and repairs at our five hospitals and various community health facilities.

“Our hospitals operate an ongoing maintenance programme to keep facilities in the best possible condition for patients, staff and visitors.

"Repairs and maintenance classified as ‘high risk’ are acted upon immediately to minimise any risk to staff or patients.

“At the same time, we are investing very significant amounts of money in new facilities such as the phase eight development, Lancashire Elective Centre and Primrose Chemotherapy Unit at Burnley General Teaching Hospital and the recent Respiratory Assessment Unit and Ambulatory Early Care Unit at the Royal Blackburn.

“Despite being one of the largest NHS Trusts in the northwest, ELHT has one of the lowest estates backlog figures in the region, despite that fact that some of our buildings are over 100 years old and therefore require extra maintenance.

“In addition, independent patient assessors awarded our hospitals excellent scores for food, cleanliness and hygiene in the latest Patient-Led Assessment of the Care Environment (PLACE) report published just three months ago.”

The repair bill across England reached a record £6 billion at the end of March.

It has risen every year since 2011-12, when it stood at £4 billion, while costs for outstanding high risk works have more than tripled over the same period.

A spokesman for LCFT said: “Enabling our teams to deliver high quality services in the right facilities is really important and we are pleased to say that at present, we have no high risk backlog maintenance.

"The figures supplied by NHS Digital are for 2017-18 and since then, the trust has achieved an overall reduction in backlog maintenance by prioritising the work needed.

"This included work replacing lifts, boilers and roofs.

"We are also refurbishing our wards, and will continue to work to address any new issues with maintenance that arise and to further reduce any current backlog for maintenance across our sites.”

A Department of Health and Social Care spokesman said: “Investment to tackle this maintenance work has increased by 25% from £324 million in 2016-17 to £404 million in 2017-18 to help trusts maintain their estates and invest in new facilities.

“We want patients to continue to receive world-class care in world-class facilities, which is why our long-term plan for the NHS will boost funding by £20.5 billion a year extra by 2023-24.

"We are also investing £3.9 billion into the NHS to help transform and modernise buildings, and improve patient care in hospitals and communities.”