RAAC has been removed from seven more sites and with the support of £440m in funding this year a further 12 hospitals are on track to complete eradication by the end of March 2026.

Minister for elective care Karin Smyth said: ‘Our nation's hospitals have been starved of investment and left to crumble for more than a decade. Patients and staff deserve safe, modern hospitals and an NHS they can rely on. Today's progress means thousands more people can walk into NHS hospitals with confidence, knowing this Government is putting safety first.

‘Thanks to the record investment this Government is providing, we are cleaning up the mess we inherited, ripping out potentially dangerous concrete and rebuilding our NHS.'

The seven hospitals where RAAC has now been eradicated are: Kidderminster Hospital, Kidderminster; Broomfield Hospital, Chelmsford; Homerton University Hospital, London; Scunthorpe General, Scunthorpe; Churchill Hospital, Oxford; Queen Victoria Hospital, East Grinstead; and New Cross Hospital, Wolverhampton.

The 12 further hospitals set to complete by the end of the financial year are: Countess of Chester Hospital; Royal Blackburn Hospital, Lancashire; Royal Hampshire County Hospital, Winchester; St Mary's Community Hospital, Portsmouth; Guildford Hospital, Guildford; Royal United Hospital, Bath; Rowley Regis Hospital, West Midlands; Queen Elizabeth Hospital, Edgbaston; Clatterbridge Hospital, Liverpool; Leigh Infirmary, Wigan; North Devon District Hospital, Barnstable; and Stamford and Rutland Hospital, Stamford.

A further seven hospitals built wholly or primarily from RAAC have been prioritised under the New Hospital Programme.