Sizeable opportunities from surplus land indentified

Late March 2017 saw a hard-hitting report published following an independent review of NHS property and estate in England headed by Sir Robert Naylor, the former CEO of University College London Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust. Among its recommendations was the formation of a powerful new NHS Property Board ‘to provide leadership to the NHS’ – including on making better use of existing estate and generating valuable funds through the sale of under-utilised properties. Sir Robert said the new estates strategy set out supported specific DH targets to release £2 billion of assets for reinvestment and deliver sufficient land for 26,000 new homes. Speaking at an Inside Government conference in London late in 2017, he elaborated further.

Entitled ‘Effectively managing NHS estates’, the one-day Inside Government conference was held at London’s Cavendish Conference Centre, and chaired by IHEEM’s chief executive, Julian Amey. In addition to Sir Robert Naylor, who gave the opening keynote address, other speakers included Duane Passman, director of the ‘3Ts’ project at Brighton & Sussex University Hospitals NHS Trust, who discussed the ongoing £485 million scheme to redevelop and replace key buildings at Brighton’s Royal Sussex County Hospital, explaining how the Trust’s project team had been harnessing the capabilities of BIM and ‘VR’ technology to give staff a clear idea of how the new facilities will look and feel

Next, Graham Spence, commercial director at Community Health Partnerships, considered ‘How nextgeneration public-private partnerships can unlock the power of NHS transformation’. The next presentation saw Sunil Vyas, director of Projects and Estates at the Royal Marsden NHS Foundation Trust, describe the challenges of having a new CHP engine installed under an EPC PFI contact at the Trust’s Sutton site. This proved an interesting story – not only was the work to install the CHP and get it up and running, and to convert the hospital’s steam distribution system to low temperature hot water, only completed after a considerable delay, but, the Estates team discovered during testing for practical completion, the CHP engine was ‘dumping’ some 60% to 70% of the heat to atmosphere during the summer, while at times the hospital’s boilers were wastefully operating while the engine was running.