Fragmented asset data is hindering NHS Trusts from dealing with a £15.9bn maintenance backlog, according to SFG20.
SFG20 – the industry standard for building maintenance specification, created by BESA (the Building Engineering Services Association) – has found that the connection between buildings and patient care has never been more direct. Infrastructure incidents no longer simply affect facilities – they result in lost clinical time, cancelled procedures, and disruption to care delivery. Estates decisions have moved from the background to the forefront of healthcare operations.
Yet despite the critical nature of their work, estates teams are facing a fundamental challenge: fragmented asset data. Most NHS trusts already hold data about their assets, but this often exists scattered across spreadsheets, CAFM systems, condition surveys and legacy records accumulated over decades – frequently incomplete, inconsistent, and of poor quality. The result is a difficulty in answering questions on the types of assets that are within buildings and how they should be maintained.
The challenge facing estates leaders is clear: how to maintain safety and compliance standards while working within the constraints of limited budgets, frozen headcount, and fragmented information systems.
Davy Clark, implementation consultant at SFG20, said: “One of the most common issues we encounter is the lack of consistency and specificity in asset registers. Too often, assets are recorded with vague descriptions like ‘boiler’ or ‘pump,’ making it incredibly difficult to map them to the correct maintenance tasks.
“Several factors contribute to this challenge, including the collection of asset data across large estates, which may have been surveyed at different points in time and by different people, causing inconsistencies in data quality and accuracy.
“This leads to inefficiencies, increased risk, and compliance challenges. Ensuring asset data is consistently structured, complete, and digitally maintained in a single source of truth is essential – not only for effective planned maintenance but also for long-term cost savings and compliance.”
