The social housing sector could play a key role in helping the NHS deal with ‘the twin threats of budget squeezes and an ageing population’, a new report from the Smith Institute, ‘Housing associations and the NHS: New thinking, New partnerships’, argues.
Produced with support from One Housing Group, the report was unveiled at Westminster on 14 July, two weeks after earlier Smith Institute research, published in the paper, ‘NHS surplus land for supported housing: why now and what are the possible cost savings?’, showed that joint work with the housing sector ‘could save the NHS up to £6bn over 25 years’.
Based on interviews with over 50 ‘key figures’ from the health and housing sectors, including hospital managers, ‘housing chiefs’, and private sector developers, the second report examines ‘how creative use of NHS land can help reduce the £30 bn healthcare funding gap forecast to face the NHS by 2020/21, and simultaneously deliver lasting public benefit and improve health outcomes for patients’.
It is acknowledged that reduced hospital admissions and more care in the community are essential to helping the NHS care for those with mental health problems, and the growing number of older people with lasting health conditions. The report says both outcomes can be met through innovative ‘half way house’ supported housing facilities for people not requiring hospitalisation, but still needing care and support.
While (the Institute claims) NHS Trusts are ‘under pressure to sell off land to the highest bidder for one-off profit’, the report maintains this is ‘short-sighted’, and that housing associations can work with Trusts to keep the land, ‘while providing cheaper healthcare facilities for the local community’.
The report’s author, Denise Chevin, a research fellow at the Smith Institute, said: “We need to focus more on considering how NHS surplus land can be used to improve care pathways, and take into account value to the community, as well as sale value of NHS land on the open market. We also need a special fund to kick-start new housing-led healthcare schemes”.
