Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how patients and staff in hospitals are being informed of the presence of reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete (RAAC) where it occurs.

The National Health Service has been surveying sites and undertaking reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete (RAAC) mitigation work since 2019 and has had an active national remediation programme since 2021 to mitigate and monitor the risks posed by RAAC across the NHS estate.

Where RAAC is identified, individual trusts share the information appropriately with staff and patients in line with the trust’s health and safety responsibilities. To date there have been no injuries caused by RAAC incidents in the NHS acute estate.

The NHS already has a comprehensive mitigation plan in place for hospital buildings with RAAC, including significant additional funding worth £698m from 2021 to 2025, for trusts to put in place necessary remediation and failsafe measures, such as propping, as well as to eradicate RAAC in non-whole hospital sites.