Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what recent guidance his Department has provided to hospitals affected by reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete (RAAC).

The National Health Service conducts regular surveys of its estate to assess the state of the building fabric. These surveys cover a wide range of structural assessments. With particular reference to reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete (RAAC), the National Health Service has been surveying sites and undertaking RAAC mitigation work since 2019 and has had an active national remediation programme since 2021 to mitigate and monitor the risks posed by RAAC across the NHS estate.

NHS England has also issued guidance for trusts nationally on how to establish the presence of RAAC in their estate. There is ongoing engagement with trusts on a national and regional level to ensure RAAC is identified across the NHS estate. Where structural surveys identify RAAC in their estate, trusts are inducted into the national remediation programme.