I beg to move,
That this House has considered a new Airedale Hospital.
I am delighted to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Edward. I am grateful to Mr Speaker for granting this urgent debate—it is urgent for reasons that I will outline in my speech—and giving me the opportunity to continue my campaign in this place for a new Airedale Hospital in my constituency. I would also like to record my thanks to the Minister, who has met me on multiple occasions to allow me to raise the issue with him.
I am lucky enough to represent a diverse constituency. My constituency is home to different towns, different communities and, with that, different challenges. Yet one thing that I hear from all four corners of my constituency—be it in Keighley, Ilkley, Silverstone, Worth Valley or any other part—is that Airedale Hospital needs and deserves a rebuild. I am not alone, because the issue is being raised by many constituents.
Airedale Hospital serves a huge catchment that reaches right up into the Yorkshire Dales and into Lancashire, serving many residents in West Yorkshire. My hon. Friend the Member for Shipley (Philip Davies), whose constituents benefit directly from the hospital’s services, is also fully behind my campaign for a new rebuild, as are my right hon. Friend the Member for Skipton and Ripon (Julian Smith) and my hon. Friend the Member for Pendle (Andrew Stephenson). They have all worked tirelessly with me on our joint endeavour to secure the hospital long into the future. Even the Chancellor’s constituents use the Airedale.
I will outline the background and explain why my ask for a rebuild of the hospital is urgent and very important to our communities. The Airedale employs over 3,500 members of staff and volunteers, serving a population of 200,000 while providing training and education, creating lifelong careers for many of my constituents. The hospital was opened in 1970, construction having started in the 1960s. The original life expectancy of the 1960s build was only 30 years, but last year we celebrated the hospital’s 50th birthday.
Like many buildings constructed in the 1960s, the hospital is constructed predominantly from reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete, or RAAC—aerated concrete for short. That material is widely known for its structural deficiencies. A staggering 83% of the hospital is made from this material, including the roof—the Airedale has the largest NHS hospital flat roof in the country, compared with any other NHS asset. That does not help when you take into account our lovely Yorkshire weather. Given our geography, our area where the Airedale Hospital is situated is one of the wettest areas in the UK. Coupled with its 1960s-design flat roof, that means that the Airedale unfortunately experiences more leaks than any other hospital in the country, creating challenges with water pooling, which of course increases the weight on the concrete roof panels. It also means that the flat roof soaks up the hot summer sun, and years of heat, rain and frost through the tough winter months have all taken their toll on the current design of the building.
While many of these 1960s constructions have come and gone, Airedale Hospital remains. It is thought to be the oldest aerated concrete hospital in the UK. Aerated concrete is present in the roof and walls, and the hospital is the only NHS trust asset that has aerated concrete in its floor panels. In fact, in total the hospital has over 50,000 aerated concrete panels, which is five times more than any other hospital affected by reinforced aerated concrete design.
Aerated concrete is known to have about one 20th of the strength of normal concrete. The Building Research Establishment has identified that aerated concrete roof panels are prone to fail when deflections between 50 mm and 90 mm come about. It is deeply concerning that Airedale Hospital has identified a significant number of aerated concrete panels with deflections approaching that threshold.
Time is of the essence. I cannot stress enough to the Minister how important and urgent this is. The warning signs are there for everybody to see, hence my lobbying hard with colleagues for a complete new rebuild of the Airedale Hospital, so that we can completely remove the risks of aerated concrete construction. My worry is that no matter how much surveying and mitigation works are undertaken, all we are doing is delaying the potential risk of a collapse at a later date.
The Minister will be well aware, from our previous conversations, of a school in Scotland where the roof, constructed by aerated concrete, unexpectedly collapsed in May 2019. Fortunately, no one was injured or killed, but that was a matter of timing and luck, nothing else. The collapse was not due to mislaid bricks or improper contracting. The Standing Committee on Structural Safety concluded in its report:
“The cause of the collapse was a shear failure due to inadequate bearing following some structural alterations made by the school. The failure was triggered by outfall gutters becoming blocked which allowed ponding of water on the roof to quickly build up during a storm”.
I understand from previous reports by the Building Research Establishment that it was thought that aerated concrete planks gave adequate warning through visual deterioration before failing. However, recent failings, including the school roof collapse in Scotland in May 2019, showed that this can no longer be relied on. It is therefore necessary to reconsider maintenance and inspection regimes. In fact, the same Committee issued an alert stating that pre-1980 aerated concrete panels
“are now past their expected service life”.
I reiterate that my hospital was built in the 1960s.
The reality is that the longer the hospital remains in its current state, the greater the possibility that such a tragic event could happen, if action is not taken. Should there be such a collapse, even if only in one small part of the hospital, imagine the consequences: the impact on life, services and the day-to-day operations of our much-loved hospital.
I have had several visits to the hospital since becoming an MP, including going on to the roof to see the issues for myself. I also visited parts of the hospital that are currently closed to the public, sealed off for reasons directly linked to mitigating the risk from the fact that the hospital is built from aerated concrete.
When one thinks of how much we rely on the NHS every day, particularly over the past year, the idea of any hospital, or even just a small part of it, having to shut its doors temporarily really hits home. Members of Airedale’s trust have also made it clear to me their fear of a loss of public confidence in the hospital, given its structural deficiencies. Such a loss of confidence would be through no fault of their own. They have a brilliant team and I have been working incredibly closely with them. However, it demonstrates why the problem must be dealt with as soon as possible. The more time goes on without acting, the greater the risk of structural failure.
What is currently being done to mitigate such risk? The Airedale NHS Foundation Trust performs several procedures to try and mitigate the dangers created by aerated concrete. It carries out regular inspections of the hospital, but those inspections have found more than 500 related structural failure incidents caused by aerated concrete, including 27 cracked concrete panels, 327 roof leaks and one incident of falling debris. The trust is regularly forced to make changes within the hospital to deal with those problems and ensure that it can operate.
During the winter months, the trust must act quickly to remove rainwater and snow to prevent the flat roof from leaking and ensure that gulley drains remain unblocked. As one would expect, that work comes at significant cost and the trust has already had approval for emergency funding of £15 million, but that is just the tip of the iceberg. The backlog maintenance for the site currently stands at £480 million, making it financially unviable to consider removing or replacing aerated concrete from the existing structure.
Of course, it is not just about the maintenance cost; it is also about the impact on healthcare service. The trust has predicted that if a temporary closure were to happen, 45,000 referrals to treatment across West Yorkshire and Harrogate would be delayed. Some 60,000 diagnostic tests and procedures, including MRI scans and ultrasound therapy treatments, and 2,000 maternity deliveries would also be affected. Overall, the trust has estimated that if an emergency closure were to happen, up to 346,000 patients across the local area could be affected. Those are chilling figures that make a new Airedale Hospital a necessity.
A modular approach has been suggested and provides a potential means to regenerate Airedale Hospital, in line with the Department for Health’s commitment to eradicating aerated concrete from NHS buildings by 2035. In my view, while that is an option, it comes with significant challenges in terms of structural connectivity with existing parts of the building—not to mention the impact on the provision of healthcare services. We cannot forget that the trust’s independent structural engineers’ report warns that the hospital’s aerated concrete panels must be replaced by no later than 2030, which is in only nine years’ time. I make my case and I know that the Minister, with whom I have had many a meeting and conversation, gets my concerns. However, we need action and we need to make decisions now.
As I continue to lobby with my right hon. and hon. neighbours, Airedale Hospital continues to provide an incredible service to many of my constituents in Keighley and Ilkley, as well as the wider area. A service delivered by incredible doctors and nurses, and other NHS staff, with a real sense of duty. At this point, I must extend my personal thanks to Brendan Brown, the chief executive of the Airedale NHS Foundation Trust, and his team, and of course I also thank Friends of Airedale, a fantastic local charity whose volunteers do so much to help staff and patients.
We need to look ahead at what the next stage is for Airedale Hospital. I am delighted to say that the trust has provided an ambitious, detailed and affordable plan for a complete new rebuild that we can make into a reality. The proposals are convenient, in that they would not disrupt the current workings of Airedale Hospital in the same way the current problems do, or in the same way that any sticking-plaster approach would. A strategic outline case was completed in January 2021, when a full appraisal recommended that the most cost-effective and future-proof solution would be to build a new hospital for Airedale within the 43-acre grounds owned by the trust. That work could be completed in as little as three years from sign-off.
These are exciting plans, with a strong environmental case. The Airedale trust’s vision is to create Europe’s first carbon-neutral and fully digitally enabled hospital, with the capabilities to generate renewable energy on site. The financial, environmental and practical case for a new Airedale hospital is clear for all to see, and I am delighted to invite the Minister to come and join me, chief executive Brendan Brown and his brilliant team for a visit to the Airedale, so that we can continue our discussions and get some concrete commitment from him that a new rebuild is the way forward.
Of course, I welcome the announcement that the Government will invest in another eight new-build hospitals, but we want to have an update now on how and when we will be able to bid for this funding, and to know whether those eight places will be ring-fenced for NHS trusts with hospitals that have the highest risk profile.
I will end by sending a message that is loud and clear to the Minister. I cannot stress enough the urgency of this issue and the desperate need for clarity now, so that we can take matters forward in a sensible manner and so that we are not simply throwing good money after bad. I am not in the game of seeking a make-do or half-hearted approach to solve this challenge. Given the facts, the high structural risk profile of the Airedale hospital—the highest of any hospital in the UK—the solution I seek is a complete new rebuild to eliminate any risk and to provide the healthcare service at the Airedale site long into the future for many generations to come.