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A cyber attack disabled alarm systems used by staff at a high-security psychiatric hospital, HSJ can reveal. West London Trust, which runs Broadmoor hospital in Crowthorne, Berkshire, is still trying to fix the system after an attack which it says took place in January. The facility was forced to use extra alarms, radios and staff “in order to respond to incidents in a timely fashion”, a trust board report from April said. High-secure hospitals are used for patients who have been detained under mental health legislation or present an immediate risk of harm to others, and have the same security arrangements as category B prisons. Staff have access to alarms for their safety and that of their patients. In a board report last week, West London Trust said clinical and operational services continued to operate with “minimal” disruption to patients. It said the organisation’s “cyber posture” would be enhanced to “limit the impact of future incidents”. Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 19 June 2025

"We've got two," explains Emer Szczygiel, emergency department head of nursing at King George Hospital, as she walks inside a pastel coloured room. On one wall, there's floral wallpaper. It is scored through with a graffiti scrawl. The words must have been scratched out with fingernails. There are no other implements in here. Patients being held in this secure room would have been searched to make sure they are not carrying anything they can use to harm themselves - or others. "So this is one of two rooms that when we were undergoing our works, we recognised, about three years ago, mental health was causing us more of an issue, so we've had two rooms purpose built," Emer says. "They're as compliant as we can get them with a mental health room - they're ligature light, as opposed to ligature free. They're under 24-hour CCTV surveillance." There are two doors, both heavily reinforced. One can be used by staff to make an emergency escape if they are under any threat. What is unusual about these rooms is that they are built right inside a busy accident and emergency department. The doors are just feet away from a nurse's station, where medical staff are trying to deal with acute ED (emergency department) attendances. On a fairly quiet Wednesday morning, the ED team is already managing five mental health patients. One, a diminutive South Asian woman, is screaming hysterically. She is clearly very agitated and becoming more distressed by the minute. Despite her size, she is surrounded by at least five security guards. She has been here for 12 hours and wants to leave, but can't as she's being held under the Mental Capacity Act. Her frustration boils over as she pushes against the chests of the security guards who encircle her. "We see about 150 to 200 patients a day through this emergency department, but we're getting on average about 15 to 20 mental health presentations to the department," Emer explains. "Some of these patients can be really difficult to manage and really complex." "If a patient's in crisis and wants to harm themselves, there's lots of things in this area that you can harm yourself with," the nurse adds. "It's trying to balance that risk and make sure every emergency department in the country is deemed a place of safety. But there is a lot of risk that comes with emergency departments, because they're not purposeful for mental health patients." Read full story Source: Sky News, 4 June 2025

The government has allocated £750 million to the NHS in England for tackling long-term maintenance problems. The Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) said the money could be used by hospitals, mental health units, and ambulance services to mend leaky pipes, improve ventilation, and solve electrical issues. The investment aims to prevent operations and appointments being cancelled because of crumbling infrastructure. However, healthcare leaders said the cash injection is a “drop in the ocean” and just a fraction of the estimated £14 billion maintenance backlog across the health service estate. More than £100 million will be put aside for maternity units to replace outdated ventilation systems in neonatal intensive care units and create better environmental conditions for vulnerable babies and their families. Hospital services were disrupted more than 4000 times in 2023-2024 due to poor quality buildings, according to England’s Health Secretary Wes Streeting. Streeting highlighted the severity of the problem, noting that burst pipes had flooded emergency departments, faulty electrical systems had shut down operating theatres, and mothers had been forced to give birth in substandard facilities. A recent UNISON survey revealed NHS hospitals were plagued by rats, cockroaches, and sewage leaks. The survey also flagged problems with leaky roofs and out-of-order toilets. Simon Corben, director for NHS estates and facilities at NHS England, said repairs were overdue. “Fixing the backlog of maintenance at NHS hospitals will help prevent cancellations,” he stated. Read full story Source: Medscape UK, 30 May 2025

Staff were effectively “locked in” a hospital at night during a power cut that led to a major incident being declared last year, HSJ can reveal. Details have emerged about the power failure and “unprecedented” disruption at Queen Alexandra Hospital in Portsmouth following a Freedom of Information request made by HSJ. The loss of power, which occurred between midnight and 2am, resulted in a failure of secure door access systems with some reported incidents “where staff were potentially locked in”. Staff interviewed as part of a debrief after the major incident in August said this was a “serious risk” and raised concerns about why the doors defaulted to locked during the power cut. The trust claims there were manual overrides in place but staff did not know about them. A spokesperson for Portsmouth Hospitals University Trust said a “series of recommendations for improvement” made after the incident have since “been completed or have full plans in place for delivery”. They said: “To ensure patient and staff safety, we have security measures in place on some of our doors to reduce the risk of unauthorised access to clinical and secure areas. These doors have manual overrides in place which are checked by our estates team working with our contractors on an ongoing basis. “During this incident, general awareness of the manual override systems on our doors was raised, so we continue working with teams to ensure all staff are familiar with our plans and how to access areas during an incident.” Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 21 May 2025

Funding is being given to around one in six GP practices in England to help them improve their buildings, the government says. Around £102m is being provided to expand and modernise surgeries, with work getting under way this summer. The government said it was the biggest public investment in facilities for five years. It comes as satisfaction levels with GP service have hit record-low levels and figures suggest two in five GPs are reporting their practices are not fit for purpose. Health Secretary Wes Streeting called it a "significant step", but warned it would not solve all existing problems overnight. Under the plan, some of the projects will involve converting office space into clinical consulting rooms as well as building new practices. Mr Streeting said: "These are simple fixes for our GP surgeries, but for too long they were left to ruin, allowing waiting lists to build and stopping doctors treating more patients." Read full story Source: BBC News, 6 May 2025

Staff are suffering “moral injury” as deteriorating estates disrupt their ability to provide care, a chief executive whose hospital rebuild has been delayed has warned. Thom Lafferty said Princess Alexandra Hospital Trust needed around £120m to fix its basic infrastructure – far outstripping normal capital allocations. The CEO, who joined in November, said: “Our staff cannot provide the level of care that they wish to because of the deteriorating estate which causes moral injury.” He said: “If something is mission critical safety, then we would have access to other resources to fix it. What we don’t have is the ability to guard against that level of operational disruption, which ends up providing a poor service for our patients and also causes moral injury to staff.” Moral injury is persistent psychological distress from acting against your ethical code, according to NHS Confederation. Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 24 March 2025

The best and worst trusts for food, cleanliness and privacy – as judged by patients and staff – have been revealed. Whittington Health Trust has been named among the worst five acute trusts on all the above measures, in the latest national assessment of care environments. Leeds and York Partnership Foundation Trust was the only mental health trust in the bottom five on all these counts. NHS England published the results of a patient-led assessment of the care environment (PLACE) last month. A team of patients and staff judged the scores on non-clinical aspects of the trust environment. A Whittington Health spokesman said it had a wide-ranging plan for improvements, including refurbishments and enhanced catering. Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 6 March 2025

NHS England has launched a £37bn framework for the largest hospital-building drive in decades, in a bid to bolster market capacity. It is hoped this will address concerns over a lack of construction market capacity that has been considered a potential threat to the programme. The agreement is for major capital works in the New Hospital Programme, which has faced significant delays since being set up to deliver 40 projects by 2030. The government claimed the original Conservative plan was unrealistic and further shifted timelines last month – with nearly half now starting construction after that date. NHSE said the Hospital 2.0 framework agreement would cover hospital building, refurbishment and ancillary works – including design – for schemes. The contract notice said: “NHSE is seeking expressions of interest from suppliers with suitable major project experience, capacity and the capability to deliver complex hospital build and refurbishment construction works.” Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 17 February 2025

The Princess Alexandra Hospital in Essex has been plagued by problems with its ageing buildings and equipment in recent years. It has regular difficulties with floods and sewage leaks across its site, which dates back to the 1960s. There have been reports of patients slipping on flooded floors, foul smells of faeces filling A&E and leaks on wards and in the operating theatre areas, posing a risk to patients and staff alike. Along with broken equipment and other building-related problems, it leads to so-called "infrastructure" incidents occurring three times a week on average, according to official NHS data analysed by the Liberal Democrats. Over the summer, two of the main operating theatres were out of action, disrupting care for patients needing hip and knee surgery. "We were unable to get the ventilation parts. We were unable to get the light fittings," hospital chief operating officer Stephanie Lawton told the BBC. "It took us several weeks to get those theatres repaired. The infrastructure is quite old now - it's very difficult to maintain." Back in September 2019, there was delight at the hospital when it was announced at the Conservative party conference that a new hospital would replace the existing one. Hospital bosses were soon predicting the doors at the new site would open in 2024 as Boris Johnson promised England 40 new hospitals, including upgrades of existing sites, in his 2019 election manifesto. But by 2023 the planned finish date for Princess Alexandra had slipped to 2030 - and this week it became one of 18 hospitals to be told there rebuilds would be delayed even further. Read full story Source: BBC News, 25 January 2025

At least two trusts whose hospitals rely on high-risk concrete will not open replacements until after 2030, despite theoretically being prioritised by government. The government previously said replacement of the seven “RAAC” or reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete hospitals would “proceed at pace due to the substantive safety risks” and “exempted” them from its review of the new hospitals programme. It comes after they were given new construction start dates in the New Hospital Programme. Read full article (paywalled). Source: HSJ, 23 January 2025

Eighteen of the 40 ‘new hospital’ schemes which were originally due to open in 2030 will now not even start construction until then – with some potentially facing a wait of until 2039 to even get spades in the ground. NHS Providers said the announcement was a “major blow to trusts, their staff, patients, and communities, many of whom now face even longer delays getting desperately needed new hospitals”. Interim CEO Saffron Cordery added: “Trusts who are part of the new hospital programme account for more than 40 per cent (£5.7bn) of the total bill for backlog repairs and maintenance. Today’s announcement will make a difficult situation even more challenging. “While today’s announcement finally gives trusts some certainty and clarity over their long-awaited building projects, this is still a bitter pill to swallow.” Read full story Source: HSJ, 20 January 2025

More than 10,000 square metres of hospital space is being left vacant across some of England’s largest hospitals because of disrepair and decay. HSJ asked the 15 acute hospitals with the most empty space what areas were vacant and why. The analysis reveals for the first time why so much space is going unused in the worst-affected hospitals. Leeds Teaching Hospitals Trust said entire floors of a wing were closed at Leeds General Infirmary because of a faulty roof. The site has the most vacant space of any nationally. The trust said the 9,500 square metres of unused space at Leeds General Infirmary — 5% of its footprint — included two floors of the Brotherton Wing that previously housed outpatient services. It said the integrity of the original roof had failed and led to water ingress, with the top floor shut for 10 years, and the one below closed more recently due to leaks. LTH’s other major hospital, St James’ University Hospital, has a further 3,200sqm vacant because it is “not suitable for modern healthcare”. Craige Richardson, director of estates and facilities, said the trust had closed some of its worst-impacted areas and relocated clinical services, but added this was “not sustainable”. Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 20 January 2025

Nineteen NHS trusts across London said they had to call in pest control over 500 times to tackle bed bugs in the last seven years, costing some hospitals hundreds of pounds. The Royal London Children’s Hospital, which is run by Barts Health NHS Trust, as well as King’s College Hospital, which sits under the King’s College Hospital NHS Trust, were among the worst affected by the pests. The figures come despite the NHS’ own pest guidance warning, which says: ‘Pest activity can pose unacceptable risks to patients, staff and visitors, undermine reputation and public confidence, and damage the environment and food products. "Pest control and management is essential for safe and hygienic healthcare facilities." Sarah Spratt, a bed bug exterminator who worked at Bed Bug Limited for six years, told Metro: ‘Hospitals are a common area to find bed bugs. The big thing to understand is the higher the footfall in a building, the higher the chance of getting bed bugs. "It is nothing that the hospitals are doing wrong, it is just statistics. All it takes is one doctor or one patient to bring them in. "There is a lack of understanding and a lack of preparedness. Maybe staff could be better trained in spotting bed bugs, leading to earlier detection." Read full story Source: The Metro, 2 December 2024

Infrastructure failings have led to over 1,000 operations being cancelled in the past two years at just 14 trusts whose rebuilding plans have been placed under review by the new government, HSJ can reveal. Ceiling leaks, flooding, broken ventilation systems, pest infestations and many other issues have caused the disruption. HSJ has tracked cancelled operations caused by infrastructure incidents across trusts in the 40 "new hospitals" programme since 2019, the year the plan was first announced by former health secretary Matt Hancock. The programme has been plagued by delays and rising costs ever since. Many schemes remain in limbo five years on and are facing the threat of even more delays after Labour announced it was reviewing the programme and planned to come up with a new "realistic" delivery timetable. Health secretary Wes Streeting has promised to reveal the outcome “in the coming weeks”. Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 1 November 2024

Scotland's largest health board has been named as a suspect in a corporate homicide investigation following the deaths of four patients at a Glasgow hospital campus. NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde (NHSGGC) informed families of the development via a closed Facebook group set up during a water contamination crisis. The board confirmed it had received an update from the Crown Office. But it added there was no indication prosecutors had "formed a final view". Police Scotland launched a criminal investigation in 2021 into a number of deaths at the Queen Elizabeth University Hospital (QEUH) campus, including that of 10-year-old Milly Main. The Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service (COPFS) instructed officers to investigate the deaths of Milly, two other children and 73-year-old Gail Armstrong. Milly's mother previously told a separate public inquiry into the building of several Scottish hospitals that her child's death was "murder". A review earlier found an infection which contributed to Milly's death was probably caused by the QEUH environment. Read full story Source: BBC News, 13 November 2023

A trust failed to identify risks associated with a helipad in one of its car parks, contributing to the death of an elderly woman who was blown over as a heavy search and rescue helicopter came into land. The Air Accident Investigations Branch found multiple factors contributed to 87-year-old Jean Langan’s death at Derriford Hospital in Plymouth in March 2022. Ms Langan was on her way to an appointment when she was blown over and another person seriously injured. Crispin Orr, chief inspector of air accidents, said: “Our in-depth investigation revealed systemic safety issues around the design and operation of hospital helicopter landing sites which need to be addressed at a national level.” Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 2 November 2023