Oral Answers to Questions

Helen Maguire Excerpts

Tuesday 17th June 2025 Commons Chamber

The Secretary of State was asked—

[Helen Maguire (Epsom and Ewell) (LD)]

1. What recent progress his Department has made on tackling the backlog of repairs in hospitals.

[Joe Powell (Kensington and Bayswater) (Lab)]

15. What steps his Department is taking to tackle building maintenance backlogs in the NHS estate.

[The Secretary of State for Health and Social Care (Wes Streeting)]

The Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, my hon. Friend the Member for West Lancashire (Ashley Dalton), sends her apologies due to a family issue. She is very much in our thoughts today.

Thanks to the decisions taken by my right hon. Friend the Chancellor at the spending review, health capital budgets will increase to £14.6 billion by the end of the spending review period. That will deliver the largest-ever health capital budget in NHS history. Across this settlement, more than £5 billion will be invested to address the most critical building repairs, reducing the most serious and critical infrastructure risks and rebuilding the broken NHS left by the Conservatives.

[Helen Maguire]

While I welcome the recent announcement of £12 million of extra funding for Epsom and St Helier university hospitals NHS trust, it is quite frankly a drop in the ocean in comparison with the scale of need, because the current backlog at the trust costs £150 million. Patients and staff deserve safe and modern facilities, not patchwork repairs. I therefore ask the Secretary of State to meet with me and visit Epsom and St Helier hospitals to see at first hand the scale of the challenge and how we can accelerate progress.

[Wes Streeting]

I absolutely appreciate the challenges that the hon. Member describes, having met with the trust myself. The Minister for Secondary Care, my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol South (Karin Smyth) and I have both met with local MPs about the challenges facing Epsom and St Helier. Lord Darzi’s investigation found that the Conservatives left a £37 billion black hole in NHS capital. We are reversing that trend, with the largest-ever capital budget for health. The £12.1 million for Epsom and St Helier trust for estate safety is in addition to the £207 million of capital that the NHS South West London integrated care board is receiving, including for maintenance backlogs. It will take time, but brick by brick Labour is rebuilding our NHS.