Major Greater Manchester hospital's outpatients, radiology department and critical care unit 'quite literally crumbling', says MP

A major Greater Manchester hospital's outpatients building, radiology department and critical care unit have been 'condemned' as they are 'quite literally crumbling', according to the local MP.

Stepping Hill Hospital has suffered two ceiling collapses in recent weeks because of leaks within the heating system. The collapses came inside the radiology department and in the critical care unit, where seriously ill patients receive intensive and high-dependency treatment.

Patients were forced to be evacuated out of the Stockport hospital and scans were cancelled after the two ceilings collapsed within a day of one another in March. The member of parliament for Stockport, Navendu Mishra, asked Prime Minister Rishi Sunak about the 'crumbling' hospital buildings in the House of Commons today (May 8).

READ MORE: Patients evacuated after TWO ceilings collapse within days at crumbling Greater Manchester hospital

“Stepping Hill’s major outpatients building, the radiology department and the critical care unit have all been condemned," Mr Mishra told the Commons during Prime Minister's Questions. "In March, I met with senior officials at Stockport NHS Trust, they were very clear that a sustained lack of capital investment is the root cause of problems at my local hospital.

“Mr Speaker, does the Prime Minister believe that our hospitals quite literally crumbling is the price worth paying for the 14 years of successive Conservative failure?”

The Prime Minister replied: "We fully recognise the need to invest in health infrastructure across the country, including at Stepping Hill Hospital. That is why we are currently spending around £4 billion a year for trusts to spend on necessary maintenance and repairs, on top of the £20 billion new hospital programme and the additional funding that was put aside to deal with RAAC — reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete — maintenance.

"The honourable gentleman talks about a legacy of the NHS; all he needs to do is look at his party’s record in Wales, where people are currently experiencing the worst A&E performance and the longest wait times anywhere in Great Britain."

The Stockport hospital has long been struggling with its ageing buildings becoming increasingly decrepit. The two ceiling collapses follow the 'immediate' complete closure of the hospital’s Outpatient B department in November, which the Manchester Evening News reported. The closure came because of a ‘significant deterioration of the structure of the building’, according to inspectors.

That outpatient unit is now only providing 51 per cent of the outpatient appointments it should. Some of the services that were provided in the Outpatient B unit are now operating at less than the previous capacity.

“A small number of services, including ophthalmology, are still to be found temporary homes due to the need to accommodate large pieces of equipment that are not easy to move,” said a report from Stockport NHS Foundation Trust chief executive, Karen James, to the most recent board meeting in April.

“Our estates team is prioritising efforts to find alternative accommodation for those services as well as permanent homes for the others as we move forward with the demolition of Outpatients B.”

The first partial ceiling collapse in recent weeks occurred on March 4 in the hospital’s radiology department because of a leak, which meant it had to cancel several scheduled procedures. The trust has not disclosed how many appointments were affected, the Guardian has reported.

The second collapse happened the very next day in its critical care unit, it has also been reported, where seriously ill patients receiving intensive and high-dependency care are treated.

Staff had to move quickly to get patients out of the 13-bed unit to ensure no one was hurt. Evacuated patients were initially cared for in some of Stepping Hill’s 20 operating theatres. Some were then transferred to a nearby hospital while repairs were carried out, the Guardian has also said.

Ms James told the board that, alongside the closure of the outpatient unit, ‘we have also suffered unexpected and unrelated ceiling collapses in our critical care unit and radiology department, caused by leaks from the heating system’. She added: “The critical care unit had to be evacuated but no patients suffered harm thanks to the prompt actions of our staff. The leak in the radiology department did cause the cancellation of some appointments.”

The chief executive also warned that the ‘estates problems are more frequently impacting our services … we are likely to experience more business continuity issues as the result of our ageing buildings’. Ms James suggested that making the repairs could be difficult as the trust will ‘have to be realistic about the amount of capital funding that is likely to be available in 2024-25 to maintain the current hospital buildings’.

Stepping Hill has been crying out for more funding to repair the crumbling areas of the hospital, including applying to become one of the 40 ‘new hospitals’ which the then-Prime Minister promised in 2019 to build by 2030. That application, however, was rejected.

A Stockport NHS Trust spokesperson said: “Leaks are a relatively common occurrence across a large and diverse estate, made up of different aged buildings, infrastructure and condition. We regularly survey the estate to measure the condition and help us direct investment to the appropriate area. It is common for small repairs to convert into larger more complex work, up to and including roof replacement.”