In the latest new hospitals report by the Public Accounts Committee, the completion date for remediating RAAC hospitals has been pushed back by two to three years
As part of the new hospitals programme, RAAC hospitals were meant to be replaced by 2030 at the latest. However, the deadline has now been moved to 2032-33 in light of historic underinvestment and lack of planning.
Further delays to the project are also possible due to a lack of contingency funding and more delays since the original announcement last year.
RAAC continues to plague many buildings
Due to the scope of the required repairs and replacements, more focus will need to be placed on risk management to ensure they can remain open past 2030. To date, £500m has been spent on mitigation, with another £440m planned, totalling approximately £1bn in reactive spending alone.
The PAC hospital report highlights a lack of long-term capital planning that simply adds more projects to the already substantial NHS maintenance backlog and diverts funds from new infrastructure projects.
Delays in remediation are due to stretched market capacity in the construction industry, skill shortages, and delivery failures, in conjunction with planning failures.
There is not much breathing room for a change of plans
Around 3% of the total funding has been set aside for contingencies, accounting for a project of over £60bn. The first wave of the programme includes 16 new hospitals and the first implementation of the Hospital 2.0 design, meaning higher costs and complexity.
Furthermore, the Hospital 2.0 design has not been finalised. Coupled with rising construction costs, planning and delivery delays, skill shortages, and new supply chain issues stemming from global conflicts, a 3% contingency fund is extremely small and leaves little room to address unforeseen issues.
The report warns: “If the programme is unable to deliver these complex schemes on time, there could be knock-on effects to the entire programme because there is little contingency for delays and cost overruns in the next five years.”
Finally, the report re-states concerns about the clarity of reporting, with low public transparency on the programme’s progress and costs. Many of the issues in this report have persisted since 2023, indicating a potential lack of strength in governance and oversight in a project that has many of the official characteristics of a mega-project, yet is not being treated like, or called a mega-project.
The report can be read in full here.
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