Research uncovers 'unacceptable risks'

Dr Melvyn Langford C.Eng, MIMechE, MCIBSE, who worked in the NHS for nearly 40 years, including as an estates and facilities manager at several NHS Trusts, has written several previous HEJ articles on 'systematic failures' in the way maintenance of NHS healthcare buildings has been managed, and on what he claims is a 'fundamental flaw' within the national guidance for backlog maintenance (see HEJ - November 2009, September 2010, and September 2011). Here he outlines the conclusions of a recent three-year research project, which he says strongly suggest that that the service's continuing use of fixed yearly budgets, and a lack of sufficient monitoring, may be resulting in what he dubs 'a catalogue of systematic failures within most organisations that are generating risk profiles that expose patients, visitors, and staff, to unacceptable levels of risk'.