New ‘PropCo’ set to play a critical role

The new company is expected to take over assets owned by PCTs such as offices and health centres, community hospitals, and clinics. Peter Wearmouth, a former chief executive of NHS Estates, and DH policy director on construction, property, and facilities management, who is now a director of Health Solutions at design, infrastructure, management, real estate, and outsourcing solutions specialist, Capita Symonds, considers the implications.

In a nutshell, the new PropCo property company will cover the former PCT estate that includes everything from GPs’ surgeries to property owned by acute NHS Trusts. According to the ‘NHS Hospital Estates and Facilities Statistics 2008/2009’, this estate has a total floor area of some 5.2 million m2. To put this firmly into perspective, a major supermarket chain reported that its store portfolio across the whole of the UK was 3.05 million m2 in February 2010. The opportunities for optimisation and investment are therefore huge. We are looking at a portfolio that comprises as many as 4,000 sites, with a book value of £4 bn which, with the right commercial advice, could be the answer to regenerating and rationalising NHS property in support of new models of frontline care. The DH has confirmed that the company ‘…would hold property for use by community and primary care services, including for use by social enterprises; deliver value-for-money property services; cut costs of administering the estate by consolidating the management of over 150 estates; deliver and develop costeffective property solutions for community health services, and dispose of property surplus to NHS requirements’. According to Andrew Lansley, the company will be required to deliver ‘value-for-money property services, cut the costs of administering the estate by consolidating its management, and deliver and develop cost-effective property solutions for community health services’.

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