Helen leads debate on £75 million maintenance backlog for Shropshire hospitals

Helen Morgan MP has led a debate in Parliament where she demanded the Government address the ‘catalogue of issues’ facing hospitals in Shropshire – including a £75 million maintenance backlog.

Helen, Liberal Democrat Spokesperson for Health and Social Care, used a rare Opposition Day in Parliament to urge the Government to reverse its delays to the New Hospital Programme and fix crumbling NHS buildings.

Helen highlighted the £13.8 billion NHS maintenance backlog in England - including £75 million worth of repairs just in Shropshire - and called on the Government to invest upfront to avoid wasting money on costly repairs later.

Royal Shrewsbury Hospital has £35 million worth of repairs outstanding, Princess Royal Hospital has £18 million outstanding and at Gobowen’s Orthopaedic Hospital the figure is £14 million. Meanwhile Whitchurch Community Hospital has a backlog of £1.5 million worth of repairs.

The Liberal Democrat motion would have created a crumbling hospitals taskforce to work at the heart of government to fix NHS buildings which are falling apart and drive forward the New Hospitals Programme, reversing the delays to 18 of the 40 projects.

Helen used her speech to highlight harrowing constituent testimonies, including a Shropshire patient left in the ‘fit to sit’ area of Shrewsbury A&E for 48 hours despite having sepsis, a 96-year-old waiting outside 11 hours for an ambulance and an 82-year-old spending 24 hours on a trolley in a hospital corridor.

The North Shropshire MP also highlighted how NHS infrastructure has not kept up with demand in Shropshire, emphasising the impact of delays to the Hospital Transformation Programme and the failure to increase capacity at GP surgeries like Prescott in Baschurch.

Since her election, Helen has been campaigned tirelessly for improvements at Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital Trust and in health and care more widely in Shropshire.

Helen Morgan, Liberal Democrat MP for North Shropshire, said, “Residents in Shropshire have been let down by both Labour and the Conservatives when it comes to healthcare.

“The backlogs in Shropshire are huge – in terms of hospital waiting times and in terms of hospital maintenance – and it is patients who are suffering as a result.

“There can be no doubt that the Conservatives’ shameful neglect of the NHS brought us to this point. However, the Labour government has so far dithered and delayed rather than getting on and delivering the change that people so desperately need.

“Liberal Democrats are the only party who will stand up for Shropshire’s residents and demand better.”

Maintenance backlog in Shropshire as of 2024: