Driving receipts from under-utilised space

The NHS has now reached 70, arguably facing more challenges today than ever before, and it is easy to forget that its roots lie in many municipal and benevolent organisations that can, in some cases, measure their history in centuries, rather than decades.

In 1948, however, everything changed. With the founding of the NHS, healthcare became a universal right, free at the point of delivery. It revolutionised people’s lives, and helped to build a more healthy and prosperous country. 

From the start, however, the NHS had to make do with what came before, and real estate was no exception. Buildings that were often designed for another age were adapted to welcome everyone, and, understandably, energies were channelled into improving patient outcomes. With ever-growing demand for its services, it was almost inevitable that money would be channelled into clinical innovation rather than bricks and mortar. It’s true that throughout its lifetime the NHS has seen some large-scale developments of general hospitals across the country, and significant changes in the primary care estate, as well as, more recently, increasing care in the community, and support for more centres of excellence. We are now indeed seeing more brand new facilities being delivered across the country, and many of their predecessors being given a new lease of life. Clinical advances are shaping property decisions too – for instance remote monitoring of certain conditions can free up hospital space for other uses.