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Aug 24, 2023

Props holding up King's Lynn hospital roof rises to 2,400

An ageing hospital roof is now being held up from within by more than 2,400

An ageing hospital roof is now being held up from within by more than 2,400 wooden and steel posts.

The number of support props at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in King's Lynn has risen from 1,500, counted in April.

Interim chief executive, Alice Webster, said the situation made for a "far from ideal" environment for staff and patients.

The trust is waiting to hear if it will be one of eight across England chosen to get a new hospital.

The Queen Elizabeth Hospital (QEH) opened in 1980, one of seven hospitals built using a material called reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete (RAAC).

The material has serious weaknesses and is deteriorating, with uncertainty over its structural integrity leading to more than £100m being spent this financial year on safety measures across the affected sites.

Ms Webster told the BBC: "We clearly know that the organisation is in an environment that is far from ideal with 2,482 props.

"That's a lot of equipment for people to be working around, so anything that we can do to get ourselves on that new hospital list, we will do.

"We have some absolutely amazing teams who work around it and we have learnt to live with them in many ways.

"Obviously we have to have teams going around looking at the building constantly and we know it does on occasion mean we have to move services while we fail-safe and make the area as it needs to be.

"We always have one eye on it", she said.

Health Secretary Therese Coffey told ITV News she would visit the hospital by the end of October, which James Wild, Conservative MP for North West Norfolk, said he was "pleased" about.

ANALYSIS: Nikki Fox, health correspondent, BBC Look East

"More than 2000 props sounds unbelievable and it is.

But they are not all traditional steel props. The hospital is undergoing a major programme to support the roof with huge wooden ceiling struts (so if parts of it collapse, it's less likely to hurt people).

Each one of these pieces of wood is counted as a "prop". So as they are only part way through the programme, we can expect the number of "props" to rise to even higher numbers over the next year.

And that will be the case until 2030 when the majority of the building will be classed as unsafe to work in.

Politicians have always known, because of the building materials used, the hospital was supposed to be replaced 25-30 years after it was built in 1980.

The fact the rebuild hasn't been decided, 12 years after that date is pretty astounding."

Earlier this year, props were installed in some of the hospital's operating theatres. Ms Webster said work will start on "fail-safe" measures which would "significantly affect the number of theatres we can use at any one time".

However, she said "mitigation plans" were in place to ensure the hospital could still provide treatment.

In 2020, the government announced 40 hospitals would be built by 2030 as part of a package worth £3.7bn, with a further eight schemes invited to bid for future funding.

The trust is waiting to hear if it will be one of those eight across England chosen to get a new hospital.

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The Queen Elizabeth Hospital, King's Lynn