A Government-owned limited company, NHS Property Services, is to take ownership of, and manage, that part of the existing primary care trust estate that will not transfer to NHS community care providers under the healthcare reform plans set out in the Health and Social Care Bill, Andrew Lansley has announced.
The Health Secretary said the plans followed the announcement on 4 August 2011 that ‘aspirant community Foundation Trusts’, other NHS Trusts, and Foundation Trusts, would be given the opportunity to acquire part(s) of the primary care trust (PCT) estate deemed ‘service-critical clinical infrastructure’. NHS Property Services Ltd will be wholly owned by the Department of Health, and, while the arrangements for it will be finalised in the coming months, the DH says its objectives will be to:
• Hold property for use by community and primary care services, including social enterprises.
• Deliver value-for-money property services.
• Cut costs of administering the estate overall by consolidating the management of over 150 estates.
• Deliver and develop cost-effective property solutions for community health services.
• Dispose of property ‘surplus to NHS requirements’.
Properties to be transferred to NHS Property Services will include some operational estate, estate with multiple occupiers, office and administrative estate, estate to be occupied by social enterprises, and surplus estate. Andrew Lansley added: “We are committed to making the NHS more efficient so more money can be spent on improving patient care. NHS Property Services Ltd will be able to release savings from properties that are declared surplus to requirements, are not needed, and are standing empty, to reinvest in local NHS services.”
