Patients and staff suffered from a lack of heating and hot water at a Reading hospital – one incident that led to disruption in care over a year.
A list of incidents where patients at hospitals have suffered disruptions to their care has been compiled across sites in the area and the country.
On one occasion at Prospect Park Hospital, patients and staff in one of the buildings suffered due to a lack of heating and hot water.
This is one of the incidents that have been revealed by a Freedom of Information (FOI) request by the BBC’s Shared Data Unit.
In an incident at Wokingham Hospital, staff arrived on shift at 8am to find water on a corridor floor and a number of buckets collecting water.
The buckets had been placed there by a unit cleaner, who discovered that rainwater was coming into the hospital via a leaking skylight.
The man also left a note and informed the estates team at the hospital.
Both Prospect Park Hospital and Wokingham Hospital are managed by the Berkshire Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust.
It is understood that both incidents were swiftly resolved.
The incidents contained in a freedom of information request made by the local democracy reporting service, and relate to the year April 2022 to April 2023 – the latest available.
A spokesperson for the Trust said: “During that period there were two reported issues at our sites and suitable arrangements were put in place to ensure continued care to our patients with minimal disruption.
“We manage over 100 sites across Berkshire and these type of situations are rare, and we have a robust process in place to deal with them.”
Other facilities Berkshire Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust is responsible for include Wexham Park Hospital in Slough and areas of West Berkshire Community Hospital in Thatcham.
No incidents occurred at the Royal Berkshire Hospital in Reading, despite urgent repairs to the site costing nearly £2 million.
This is managed by the Royal Berkshire NHS Foundation Trust, which also manages the Bracknell Healthspace, Townlands Memorial Hospital in Henley and parts of West Berkshire Community Hospital.
Nationally, disrepair of hospital buildings led to disruption to patients’ care in at least 1,000 separate incidents from April 2022 to April 2023.
The BBC Shared Data Unit asked every acute hospital trust in England to provide details of when estates and infrastructure failures had caused so-called “clinical service incidents”.
A total of 86 trusts provided a response, revealing there had been at least 1,385 reports of infrastructure problems, impacting the care of at least 1,055 patients.
