Hospitals: Maintenance

Lord Allan of Hallam Excerpts

Thursday 9th February 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Markham (Con)]

We are actually making a lot of progress on them. A number of them, dare I say it, were introduced by Governments of a different colour and we are now working through and correcting those. At the same time, private capital can do a lot of good things. Many in the House will have heard me say just yesterday that if we put LED lightbulbs in every hospital, it would cost £400 million and save £100 million a year. That is the sort of thing private capital will fund every day of the week, probably at a 5% yield, giving us £95 million of savings a year. That is a good use of private capital, and the sort of thing I am looking at.

[Lord Allan of Hallam (LD)]

My Lords, I am surprised that more noble Lords have not dived into this report. It is fascinating, especially sheet 7 of the spreadsheet, which tells us that NHS England is spending £234 million a year on storing medical records. So while some parts of the NHS are working towards all-singing, all-dancing federated data platforms, in other places the height of modern technology is a new shopping trolley to move mouldering files in and out of a dingy basement. Will the Minister share with the House the Government’s plans to digitise or securely dispose of those paper records so that in future editions of this ERIC report, we will see that that £234 million has fallen close to zero?

[Lord Markham (Con)]

The noble Lord makes an excellent point. As he knows, we are investing heavily in a federated data platform, which is precisely about stopping storing paper and making such savings. Even more importantly, it is about improving patient care so that we can ensure that records are transferred instantaneously and really build on the knowledge that will bring.