Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what recent steps he has taken to resolve the NHS high-risk maintenance backlog.

The Department collects data on backlog maintenance annually from National Health Service trusts through its Estates Returns Information Collection. The data collected has not been amended centrally and its accuracy always remains the responsibility of the contributing NHS organisations. The latest total figure for backlog maintenance, for 2017-18, is £6.0 billion.

Individual NHS providers are responsible for the safety and quality of their estates. NHS planning guidance has made clear that providers should actively consider the requirement for funding critical estate backlog within their capital plan and explain their strategy for investment in backlog work and risk mitigation. Sustainability and transformation partnerships (STPs) have also been asked to set out their plans for tackling backlog maintenance as part of their STP level estates strategies.

The 2017 Autumn Budget announced £3.5 billion of new additional capital investment in the NHS in England by 2022-23, including £700 million to support turnaround plans in struggling trusts and tackle critical maintenance issues.

As the NHS develops its long-term plan, the improvement of the quality and safety of the NHS estate will be a key deliverable. The Government has been clear that one of the financial tests against which the long-term plan will be assessed is that the NHS makes better use of capital investment and its existing assets.