Hospitals £114 million maintenance backlog 

Hospital chiefs in Shropshire are planning a massive shake-up of public assets as they seek to reduce a £114 million maintenance backlog at sites in Shrewsbury and Telford.

A new five-year draft Estates Strategy set to be approved at a meeting today confirms that much of the estate at both Princess Royal Hospital (PRH) in Telford and the Royal Shrewsbury Hospital (RSH) is old and costly to maintain.

The plan includes selling ‘non-compliant or non-essential’ buildings as chiefs focus on providing services in fewer but higher-quality facilities that are closer to patients in the community. 

“We will proactively manage our assets and have a clear plan for reducing backlog maintenance,” the draft strategy states.

“Where assets cannot be cost-effectively maintained or the estate is deemed surplus, it will be released, with capital receipts reinvested into the capital programme.”

The Shrewsbury and Telford Hospitals NHS Trust (SaTH) which runs the two hospitals sees the ‘Future Fit’ Hospital Transformation Programme and more focus being put on services in the community as the ideal time to rationalise. The trust plans to use RSH for emergency care and PRH for planned care.

SaTH is the main provider of district general hospital services for the population of around 500,000 people in Shropshire, Telford and Wrekin and Mid Wales. It has just over 700 inpatient beds.

SaTH’s board of directors will be asked to approve a 2025-2030 estates strategy which says that the “overall footprint will reduce with the disposal of non-compliant or nonessential buildings or settings where possible whilst we also consider capacity increases and Hospital Transformation Programme model changes”.

SaTH’s bills include £7.742m in rates, leases and rent plus £7.35m a year on electricity, gas, water and oil.

The strategy due to be presented by assistant chief executive Inese Robotham also says the ‘co-location’ of hospital employees with organisations like Shropcom will increase as the aim is to have “fewer but higher-quality facilities”.

The strategy says that key tasks over the next 12 months will include a “continuous challenge to the holding of assets and their use“.

The strategy also plans to “consider opportunities from currently under-utilised buildings where leasing to third-party, re-purposing or mothballing may allow longer term decisions.“

SaTH’s assets were valued on March 31, 2025 as being £223 million, made up of £195.4 million in buildings, £13.8 million in external areas and £14 million in land.

But it is an ageing estate with a maintenance backlog of around £114 million, with 68 per cent of RSH considered poor/expired, including critical care, theatres, inpatient wards, pathology, pharmacy, imaging, and outpatients.

Some 28 per cent of PRH is considered poor, including theatres, the emergency department, imaging, outpatients, pathology, and pharmacy.

“Delays in implementing solutions to these issues have meant we have resorted to a range of temporary, ad hoc solutions, including temporary and modular accommodation,” the report says.

The strategy goals over the next five years include rationalising the estate with a focus on a “better quality estate” and minimising new construction by firstly re-using existing buildings where suitable and economically viable, and secondly, by maximising occupancy in terms of density and time periods.

The board will be told that SaTH’s estates “require urgent strategic capital investment”.

“We need to replace and/or upgrade our current buildings as we do not have the capacity to deliver forecast demand for urgent emergency care and elective services.

“Our emergency departments are too small for modern emergency care and our wards, especially at RSH, have structurally poor layouts.”

But the strategy says the estate will continue to provide the foundation required for a high quality, safe and effective clinical and working environment for service users, colleagues and partners in Shrewsbury and Telford.

It said the Hospital Transformation Programme demonstrates the trust’s continued investment in its estate and improved healthcare for its communities.

“Our plans and strategic ambitions will ensure that we deliver two thriving hospital sites that will improve care for everyone,” the report adds.