MORE than £150 million needs to be spent to bring hospital buildings in the district up to scratch, figures have revealed. NHS Providers warned that the speed at which the NHS estate is falling into disrepair is putting patients’ lives at greater risk and making it more difficult for frontline staff to provide the right quality of care. Chief executive Chris Hopson said the backlog is now “broadly equivalent to the annual cost of running the entire NHS estate”. He added: “More worrying still, over half of this is for work of high or significant risk. In short, this problem poses an increasing threat to safety.”