The recent expansion of NHS Property Services’ ‘Healthy Places’ Programme has been marked with the release of its first ‘year in review.’
The report, Healthy Places: End of Year review 2021/22, describes how the programme aims to deliver benefits to patients and service users, including:
- Multi-million-pound investment in upgraded and new spaces, with circa 150,000 m2 of improved space across the NHS estate (58,500 m2 completed so far);
- Over four million patients to benefit through capital investment projects (two million have benefited so far);
- A ‘more efficient estate’, with circa 80,000 m2 of vacant space removed for re-use or disposal, raising capital for reinvestment into priority sites across the NHS estate.
In 2021 NHS Property Services expanded its ‘Healthy Places’ programme, working with customers to identify 300 projects that would help ‘transform the NHS estate, support Integrated Care Systems (ICSs), and enable excellent patient care’. Projects ranged from refurbishments and new-builds, to accommodating social prescribing initiatives, estate optimisation, and the repurposing of vacant space.
The first two years of the programme have delivered over 170 projects, with ‘significant milestones’ met on others including the submission of a business case to support the full completion of the programme. The newly published ‘year in review’ report describes some of this in more detail, and includes key statistics, regional case studies, and a forward view of the next steps for the programme.
Simon Taylor, Portfolio Optimisation director at NHSPS, who leads on the Healthy Places scheme, he said: “We are thrilled to have made such fantastic progress with our NHS colleagues across the first 300 projects, and very proud to share our ‘year in review’ brochure with customers and stakeholders to celebrate this success. Healthy Places has been a real team effort so far, and is a fantastic example of collaboration across the entire NHSPS business, and with our customers/partners to deliver improvements for patients and the NHS workforce.
“We are now looking forward to the next stage of the programme, and placing an even greater emphasis on tackling health inequalities, supporting the ‘levelling up’ agenda, and responding to NHS priorities such as community diagnostic centres and COVID-19 recovery support.”
