ALMOST a fifth of patient areas in North Yorkshire's hospitals and other NHS buildings fail to meet important health and safety rules.

Government figures have revealed there is a massive backlog of repairs to crumbling health service buildings across the country.

The area covered by the North and North East Yorkshire and North Lincolnshire Strategic Health Authority has one of the worst records.

Only three other authority areas fare worse in the survey results, which have been uncovered in a written Parliamentary answer obtained by the Liberal Democrats. Nineteen per cent of patient areas in this region do not meet health and safety guidelines, and almost 14 per cent of floor space used by patients do not comply with fire rules either.

"Non-compliance" with the rules can include crumbling walls, faulty electrics or problems with mechanised systems. Likely problems that could arise as a result of "non-compliance" include fires, injury caused by poorly-maintained facilities or trip hazards. Work costing £458 million is needed in the Northern and Yorkshire region alone to deal with the problems.

The national backlog of hospital repairs has reached £3.4 billion, or £117 for every taxpayer in the country.

Lib Dem health spokesman Dr Evan Harris said: "These figures are alarming. Years of cuts have led to appalling conditions in Britain's hospitals.

"Crumbling buildings mean that many areas are now considered unsafe. The repair bill is astronomical.

"This problem should have been tackled earlier, but it is not a "must do" target, so hospital managers struggling to meet all the political targets they have been set cannot get round to basic repairs."

He claimed it was only a matter of time before a serious accident happened.

However, Health Minister John Hutton said many of the areas which did not meet health and safety or fire rules were only just below standard.

He added: "Therefore the figures do not indicate levels of risk, and despite significant proportions being non-compliant, the degree of risk to patients could be very small.

"Trusts make every effort to remedy any concerns from local enforcement bodies as quickly as possible.

"This is reflected in the very small numbers of injuries and deaths arising as a result of fires and reportable health and safety incidents in NHS hospitals in England, despite the very high numbers of people who use healthcare premises."

A spokeswoman for the North and North East Yorkshire authority said it would not be able to comment on the figures until it had had a chance to study them closely.

Updated: 10:29 Saturday, April 19, 2003