Prime at the Kings Fund

On 28 September 2017, Prime’s Marketing and Communications Director Wendy Teo, went along to The King’s Fund in London, as a delegate at the ‘Maximising the value of the NHS estate and back-office systems’ event.  Here, Wendy shares her thoughts on the event and the day’s big discussion points:

At Prime, estates transformation is something we have been involved with for more than 20 years; first focusing on primary and community care and more recently looking at how we can use our healthcare planning, property development and funding expertise in the acute sector. Set against the demands of the NHS Five Year Forward View, the need for estates transformation is certainly gathering pace across the board.

Testament to this increasing momentum was the packed programme of keynote speakers and information sessions scheduled for the Kings Fund event in London that I attended. The programme covered a variety of topics and addressed the challenges and solutions to delivering estates efficiencies as part of the wider strategic transformation of the NHS.

The event started with one of the day’s big hitters, Sir Robert Naylor. I had read his NHS estates review on how to make the best use of buildings and land, and very much enjoyed the presentation about his findings. The keynote speech really set the tone for the day – the need for a shared, long term vision, clear leadership and governance, and access to the necessary skills and knowledge required to make NHS estates improvements a reality.

Following Sir Robert Naylor on the speaker programme was Simon Corben, and for me, his presentation was the most interesting and informative of the day. The Director and Head of Profession for NHS Estates and Facilities from NHS Improvement had a lot to say about how his organisation would be supporting Trusts to achieve their estate objectives. Moving beyond the why’s and really getting down to the nitty gritty to address the how’s.

I listened with interest as Simon introduced the Estates Programme Board – a monthly meeting of key organisations, signalling an unprecedented and concerted effort to get estates transformation working in practice. This sounds like it could be the joined-up approach the NHS needs to turn estate ambitions into reality.

ICYMI, the Estates Programme Board brings together Department of Health, CO (?), the Treasury, NHS England, NHS Improvement, Community Health Partnerships, NHS Property Services and the Department for Communities and Local Government. The group shares a common vision and commits time and resources to a variety of work streams including backlog maintenance and disposals.

One of the points in Simon’s presentation that really resonated with me was how they would be streamlining business case approvals for estates projects. From my experience with Prime, I know how time consuming and frustrating business case approvals can be, so any move to quicken the process would be very welcome and help to increase the pace of transformation.

Also in Simon’s keynote speech was a mention for the decoupling of services from estates, an approach that Prime is very familiar with. Through our SEP work, we have put together a number of financial deals which do just that – from a PPP perspective, these are incredibly effective in getting projects financed to benefit a Trust and their stakeholders, as well as the private investor, and we will be very interested in hearing how NHS Improvements will be taking this idea forward.

Moving into the afternoon, we heard from Graham Spencer at Community Health Partnerships. Although he wasn’t able to give too much away in terms of details, Graham discussed Project Phoenix – a new procurement vehicle for estates and a new dawn for PPP. Prime has been involved with CHP’s LIFT scheme for many years, and we have seen how effective a vehicle it can be for realising change in areas that are most in need. Graham’s speech has certainly raised the anticipation ahead of the official Project Phoenix launch in November.

Overall, I heard a lot of positive talk about the future of NHS estates development at the Kings Fund, both from contributors to the programme and from other delegates. Sir Naylor’s review has clearly set out what the NHS needs to do, and I’m encouraged to hear that his recommendations are being embraced and actioned in a joined up way, with senior decision makers working together to deliver change. The foundations are there, and with the addition of Project Phoenix to provide widespread access to an affordable procurement vehicle, we may have the final piece in the puzzle to delivering the NHS models of care outlined in the STPs.