Surgeons at Great Ormond Street Hospital (GOSH) for children were forced to use mobile phone torches during an operation due to a power outage, the NHS’s safety watchdog has found.
The leading children’s hospital has faced ongoing concerns over the maintenance of its estate and operating theatres, which have led to water leaks and power outages, according to a report by the Care Quality Commission.
The CQC warned of “recurrent” problems, including a power outage during spinal surgery and ventilation failures.
The watchdog’s inspection came after GOSH faced scrutiny over the care of hundreds of children by orthopaedic surgeon Yaser Jabber.
In its report, the CQC said it found concerns around “surgical accountability and oversight” at the trust.
The news comes as the NHS in England faces a £14 billion backlog in estate maintenance spending, meaning hospital buildings are facing issues which can impact patient safety and lead to the cancellation of operations.
Earlier this year, the National Audit Office warned that around 5,400 clinical service incidents occur in the NHS each year due to building or infrastructure failures.
The CQC report’s findings into building failures, first revealed by The Sunday Times, said: “Concerns were raised about the maintenance of operating theatres and equipment safety. A recent power outage during a spinal surgery procedure required staff to use mobile phone torches to complete wound closure.
“This incident, alongside reports of water leaks affecting electrical systems and theatre closures due to filtration failures, indicated ongoing issues with estates and facilities management.”
The CQC report said the trust took actions to address the problems; however, it warned there were “recurrent theatre maintenance failures that had resulted in delayed or cancelled surgical procedures, impacting patient safety and access to timely care.”
A spokeswoman for the trust said the incident was caused by an electrical system power failure and that an external review had been commissioned. The trust told The Sunday Times the surgical lights immediately over the patient remained during the power cut, but that theatre staff moving around the operating theatre had to use a phone torch to avoid cables and find the equipment needed.
According to the think tank, The Health Foundation, the NHS needs its capital spending to grow by 10.2 per cent a year between 2024-25 and 2029-30 to address its maintenance backlog, to invest in technology, buildings and equipment to improve services.
Following the government’s spending review, the capital budget for the Department for Health and Social Care is expected to grow by £2.3 billion from £10.9 billion in 2023-24 to £13.2 billion in 2025-26.
Hospitals across the country report incidents due to poor infrastructure or building issues.
Last month, Gloucester Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust experienced an issue with its servers, which forced it to rely on paper ahead of a five-day junior doctor strike.
According to the Sunday Times, in June, the Princess Royal Hospital in Telford was forced to close several wards and divert ambulances due to a burst pipe.
St Helier Hospital in Sutton, which had to cancel urgent tests due to flooding, told the paper “Our ageing hospitals are deteriorating faster than we can fix them — with issues such as floods, leaking roofs, and broken-down lifts, as well as buildings that have had to be demolished because the foundations are sinking”.
Last year, the government identified more hospitals which had been impacted by a long-running issue of having reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete (RAAC) across its estates – a total of 47 hospitals have been identified.
