King's Lynn Queen Elizabeth Hospital: PM Truss hopes for Coffey visit

Prime Minister Liz Truss said she hoped her health secretary would take action improve a propped-up hospital in her home county of Norfolk.

The ageing roof of the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in King's Lynn is held up in more than 100 places by steel and wooden posts.

Ms Truss told BBC Radio Norfolk she wanted Therese Coffey to visit the site to "make sure action is taken".

She added: "It simply isn't good enough for the patients."

Ms Truss was asked about the hospital during her first media interviews since last Friday's mini-budget caused market turmoil.

She would not commit to a new hospital in King's Lynn, but put her faith in Ms Coffey.

"I hope she will be the one that delivers," said Ms Truss. "I'm not making promises on her behalf but I will certainly be putting that case as the local MP."

Her comments come as a Freedom of Information (FOI) request by the Liberal Democrats ranked the Queen Elizabeth Hospital the worst in the country for hospitals with "dangerous roofs at risk of sudden collapse".

Four of the hospital's buildings are fitted with "structurally weaker" reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete, which the NHS estate has promised to remove by 2035.

West Suffolk Hospital, based in the same county as Health Secretary Therese Coffey's constituency, also has two buildings fitted with "dangerous" roofs.

A spokeswoman for the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) said it was "committed to urgently addressing any risks to patient and staff safety".

"We are taking action to improve health infrastructure across the country - providing more than £4bn for trusts to support local priorities, including to maintain and refurbish their premises," she said.

"We have also set aside over £685m to directly address urgent risks relating to the use of reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete."

Radio Norfolk also put it to Ms Truss that Ms Coffey would be the fourth health secretary to visit the hospital in recent times.

The most recent - her predecessor Stephen Barclay - said the government recognised there was a "specific issue" to address the problems there during a visit in August.

Health minister Edward Argar also saw the structural problems during a trip in June.

Ms Truss said: "As a local MP I've been lobbying very hard to see improvements at the Queen Elizabeth and I've seen for myself the very difficult situation with the roof.

"We have a new health secretary. I do hope she'll visit the Queen Elizabeth Hospital soon to see the situation there and make sure that action is taken, because it simply isn't good enough for the patients."

Liberal Democrat health spokeswoman, Daisy Cooper MP, described the situation as "a disaster waiting to happen".

She said: "Liz Truss and Kwasi Kwarteng's first budget prioritised slashing taxes for the big banks over fixing crumbling hospitals.

"There was a deafening silence from government over how it intends to deal with dangerous ambulance wait times or lack of local NHS dentists, let alone buildings at risk of collapse.

"It is a national scandal that successive health ministers have not even bothered to replace dangerous roofs which put patients and staff at risk."

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