Doncaster Royal Infirmary

Lord Bishop of Sheffield Excerpts

Monday 12th May 2025 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[The Lord Bishop of Sheffield]

To ask His Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the impact of the conditions at Doncaster Royal Infirmary on patient care.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health and Social Care (Baroness Merron) (Lab)]

My Lords, Doncaster Royal Infirmary has a backlog maintenance bill of approximately £114 million, and serious infrastructure issues are indeed presenting challenges to delivering high-quality patient care. Repairing and rebuilding our healthcare estate is vital in creating an NHS fit for the future. South Yorkshire ICB has been provisionally allocated more than £150 million in capital investment for 2025-26 to begin to tackle estate challenges, including the condition of DRI.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Lord Bishop of Sheffield]

I thank the Minister for her Answer. She may be aware that one recent estimate of the costs involved in bringing the infrastructure of DRI into good repair came to an eye-watering £478 million. In 2021, a water ingress into the electrical circuits in the maternity ward caused the evacuation of premature babies in incubators and women in labour. In 2023, the collapse of a significant portion of plaster work in a hospital corridor ceiling resulted in no human injury only by the providence of God. How does the Minister intend to monitor the conditions at DRI to ensure that any future deterioration does not put the safety of patients and staff at risk?

[Baroness Merron (Lab)]

I am very aware of the unacceptable situation that the right reverend Prelate describes. I can confirm that, in terms of capital commitments, in 2025-26 the Government are backing NHS systems with over £4 billion in operational capital, £750 million of targeted estate-safety funding, which will be crucial to DRI, as well as £440 million to tackle crumbling RAAC. Why is this all so important? It is all about keeping staff, patients and their families safe, and it is also about providing the best possible care. I should say that the Doncaster and Bassetlaw Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, which DRI comes under, is discussing—indeed, it absolutely should be discussing—options with the ICB to steer the programme allocations towards DRI.

Adult Social Care (Adult Social Care Committee Report)

Lord Bishop of Sheffield Excerpts

Monday 16th October 2023 Lords Chamber

[The Lord Bishop of Sheffield]

My Lords, I start by paying tribute to the noble Baroness, Lady Andrews, and to all the members of the Adult Social Care Committee for the excellent report they produced last year, full of thoroughly perceptive and practical recommendations to government and speaking to the longing we all have to live a life of joy, fulfilment and purpose. The committee undertook its work in precisely the same period as the Archbishops’ Commission on Reimagining Care and it is heartening to see the considerable amount of overlap in the values proposed and the conclusions reached. Both contribute to the growing consensus that we cannot any longer tinker around the edges of the existing system. We must reset and reimagine the way that social care is understood, organised and delivered.

The committee report identifies quite correctly the importance of making social care a national imperative, yet it notes the widely held perception that social care is something that affects other people and that many begin looking for information about support available only once they have reached a crisis. The Archbishop’s Commission on Reimagining Care argued that it will be possible to reimagine social care only if we fundamentally rethink our attitudes in society, where too often we are inclined to treat people as if their value is determined by factors such as age, gender or ability rather than affirming and celebrating the dignity of all human beings, valued for who they are and not for what they do.

At best, social care is the means by which people are enabled to live a full life. This is not the responsibility of the government alone. Churches, for example, have an important part to play in supporting people to flourish in community. I think of the hugely valuable dementia cafés currently organised and hosted by church communities in my diocese, for example, in the parishes of Sprotbrough in Doncaster and Handsworth in Sheffield, which are both run in partnership with local authority well-being services.

The primary recommendation of the Archbishops’ Commission on Reimagining Care is the development of a national care covenant which would clarify the roles and responsibilities for social care to be shared across society. The language of covenant encourages us to move away from ideas of contracts and rights towards powerful notions of partnership and interdependence. We all stand to benefit from a society where our dependence upon one another is recognised and celebrated and promotes the flourishing of all so that each one of us indeed has the best possible chance to live a “gloriously ordinary life”. Will the Minister say how far the concept of a national care covenant has been found useful by the Government in their ongoing efforts to reimagine social care?