Grenfell Tower fire: Two more hospitals fail fire safety checks

Two more hospitals have failed fire safety checks, ordered in the aftermath of the Grenfell Tower fire.

Buildings at Newcastle upon Tyne NHS Trust and University College Hospital in London have been found to have combustible cladding.

They will now have to take action and continue with 24-hour fire warden patrols in the meantime.

It brings the total of failed sites to five – none of the buildings has patients staying overnight.

One is an office building, while the others see and treat patients during the day.

In all the cases – except one – the cladding is being removed. The exception is University College Hospital, where other options are being explored because of the size of the building involved.

Thirty-eight of the highest risk sites have now been checked. NHS bosses said the review of sites would now be expanded to other hospitals, with another six added to the high-priority list.

• Six questions for the investigation
• Where have cladding tests failed?
• Why do England’s high-rises keep failing fire tests?
• Guide to what happened?

A spokesman for NHS Improvement, the regulator in charge of carrying out the checks, said: “Patient safety continues to be our absolute priority, and we’ll make sure the NHS is supported to carry out the urgent fire safety checks required.”

The urgent checks were ordered by Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt following the Grenfell Tower fire.

In Scotland, health boards have confirmed combustible cladding has not been used on any buildings.