The full list of safety repairs to be carried out at Lancashire's hospitals with new government cash
NHS trusts across Lancashire will be handed almost £16.5m to carry out safety upgrades to their facilities.
The money is to be used for “small-scale, but important" works, the Department for Health and Social Care has said.
The trust that runs the Royal Preston and Chorley and South Ribble hospitals will get the largest allocation in Lancashire from the nationwide £750m Estates Safety Fund.
The £4.7m share for Lancashire Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust (LTH) will be spent across both its sites on improvements to water, energy and electrical systems and fixed and plant equipment, together with fire safety works and new ‘nurse call’ equipment.
As the Local Democracy Reporting Service previously revealed, the Royal Preston alone had a maintenance backlog of £157m as long ago as 2021.
When plans for a replacement hospital facility were indefinitely delayed earlier this year - with any new Royal Preston now not likely to open until the early-mid 2040s - LTH warned that “significant additional capital funding” would be needed to ensure “patient services and health outcomes are not impacted”.
Elsewhere in Lancashire, University Hospitals of Morecambe Bay NHS Foundation Trust is in line for £4.3m across its Royal Lancaster Infirmary, Furness General Hospital and Westmorland General Hospital sites.
The funding will be used for “improvements to internal building fabric and fixtures”, along with fixed and plant equipment upgrades and fire safety and roof works.
Lancashire and South Cumbria NHS Foundation Trust - which specialises in mental health services - will receive £3.1m for roof works at The Harbour, near Blackpool, and a facility it runs within the Royal Preston.
Blackpool Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust has been allocated a £1.4m share for improvements to the external and internal building fabric and fixtures at Blackpool Victoria. Energy and electrical systems will also be upgraded, lifts replaced or improved, a new nurse call system installed and roof and other structural works undertaken.
Meanwhile, at Burnley General Hospital £757,000 will be spent on fire safety works, lift upgrades or replacements and improved building management systems, via a grant to the East Lancashire Hospitals NHS Trust.
North West Ambulance Service facilities in Lancashire - at locations including Broughton and Morecambe - will get £2m for heating system improvements, fire safety works and external and internal building fabric and fixtures.
Health and Social Care Secretary Wes Streeting said of the funding: “A decade-and- a-half of underinvestment left hospitals crumbling, with burst pipes flooding emergency departments, faulty electrical systems shutting down operating theatres, and mothers giving birth in outdated facilities that lack basic dignity.
“We are on a mission to rebuild our NHS through investment and modernisation.”