Crumbling hospitals are putting patients at risk and jeopardising efforts to tackle NHS backlogs, experts warned today.
Sewage leaking through ceilings, broken lifts and rat-infested wards are among the issues logged by health chiefs.
Power outages also saw life-saving operations postponed, forcing women in labour to be rushed to other hospitals in taxis.
The state of disrepair has forced hospitals, tasked with sorting the knock-on effects of Covid to patient care, to cancel hundreds of appointments.
More than 6,800 health and safety incidents caused by old and faulty NHS buildings were logged last year. This is up from roughly 2,300 in 2017.
Jeremy Hunt, former Health Secretary, claimed the figures, unearthed by The Times, were 'deeply concerning'.
The health service logged 6,812 clinical service incidents linked to a failure to invest in infrastructure in the last year, such as collapsing ceilings and power outages that risked patient safety. The figure, which also covers leaks, heating problems and pest infestations, is 2.9-times higher than the 2,338 recorded in 2017. Pictured: Royal Liverpool Hospital flooded 10 times in 2018, causing delays to patient care and forcing staff to wear wellies
The newspaper's FOI requests uncovered a case where a patient on a ventilator was stuck in a broken lift for half-an-hour.
The patient, who was unconscious, was stuck alongside five members of staff at the Countess of Chester Hospital in May 2019.
Another incident at the same hospital saw patients have to 'sleep in hats and gloves' because of a lack of heating. Health chiefs labelled the issue 'a patient death waiting to happen'.
While a patient at Furness General Hospital in Cumbria saw their room overflow with 'raw sewage' in November, it was revealed.
