NHS Confederation responds to the Liberal Democrats findings on hospitals using outdated medical equipment

Responding to findings from the Liberal Democrats which show four in ten NHS hospitals are using outdated medical equipment, Matthew Taylor, chief executive of the NHS Confederation said:

“Health leaders are clear that many of their hospitals are in desperate need of repair and updating, as these findings demonstrate further. No one working in the NHS wants this for their patients or staff.

“We called for the government’s Spring Budget to address this by increasing either the NHS capital or revenue budgets over and above what was announced in the Autumn Statement last year. While there is a £0.3 billion uplift in health capital spending for 2023/24, this comes from underspend in 2022/23 and does not represent an overall increase. This means leaders are left with little funding to make any effective further improvements in their hospitals.

“The cost of the maintenance backlog alone is estimated to currently stand at £10.2bn. We urgently call on the government to increase capital spending providing the funding that hospitals and other parts of the health service desperately need, so that staff can continue to look after their patients safely.”