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All NHS "surplus" land to be sold off in 6 giant Public Private Partnership deals by end June 2017

Details: Published: Friday, 16 June 2017 23:43

Project Phoenix: Is NHS PPP about to rise from the ashes?

From http://www.cms-lawnow.com/ealerts/2017/05/project-phoenix-is-nhs-ppp-about-to-rise-from-the-ashes?cc_lang=en

published 12th May 2017.

(See also National Health Action Party: https://nhap.org/the-naylor-report-the-nhs-sell-off-is-being-speeded-up-our-children-are-being-robbed-of-their-inheritance/)

"Community Health Partnerships (CHP), a wholly owned Department of Health (DoH) company, currently provides public sector investment in the primary healthcare and community estate through the NHS Local Improvement Finance Trust (LIFT). The aim of CHP is to deliver savings, increase service integration and drive efficient use of the primary and community health estate. As head tenant for the £2.5bn LIFT estate, CHP is also responsible for the overall management of 305 primary and community healthcare buildings across England.

LIFT, launched in 2000, was a mechanism to attract private investment into primary care facilities, particularly in areas of social deprivation. Primary care premises had historically been provided under a variety of arrangements – private ownership by GPs, private sector leases and central NHS provision. LIFT was considered to be a new form of PPP [Private Public Partnership] that invested in new build primary care premises. It has been estimated that LIFT companies have generated more than £2.2billion worth of investment, leveraging an original investment of around £53m made by the DoH and providing an on-going return on investment to public sector shareholders including the local NHS.

In late 2015, against the backdrop of crumbling NHS estates and the publication of NHS England’s five-year view (which set out a vision for wide scale transformation and new ways of working across the NHS), CHP were asked by its shareholder, DoH, to investigate and develop thinking around how a future new PPP model could be deployed to meet national strategic estate management objectives, codename: Project Phoenix.

The DoH objectives in developing Project Phoenix were to:

increase the pace of delivery of estates transformation across the healthcare estate and provide solutions for a capital constrained system;
provide a national approach to deliver schemes across the full range of providers to complement other approaches;
provide innovative solutions to meet identified needs arising from NHS England’s five-year view;
demonstrate Value for Money and provide financially sustainable solutions for the local healthcare economy.

A project board including representatives from stakeholders including DoH, NHS England, NHS Improvement, CHP and NHS Property Services was formed to oversee the model to ensure that it would meet future needs. Extensive stakeholder engagement also took place with commissioners, providers, private sector partners, advisors and the debt market [financiers]. External support was provided by PWC.

Following this consultation, the DoH preferred option is to adopt a PPP which could build on the success of the existing LIFT programme. The aim is to ensure the right commercial arrangements to attract private sector bidders and private capital and it is hoped that this will lead to a transformation of existing estates, not just new build. One of the main challenges for the new PPP will be the interface with existing LIFT companies.

A Business Case has been submitted to the DoH for approval (although this is now on hold until after the election), following which Treasury approval will be sought. The business case proposes 6 regional PPPs which have been been divided up as follows:

North East
North West
East Midlands
West Midlands
South East
South West

Project Phoenix is currently targeting the issuing of the first OJEU Notices [European tenders] in late June 2017, with the first PPPs going live later in 2017, which is a very ambitious timetable. The current plan is to use one procurement timeline to appoint all six partners for the programme. Given that it is estimated by industry commentators that this new PPP will be worth £3bn-5bn, this is one bird we will all be watching."

[Bold and underline added]

This is published on the website of CMS Legal Services, a partnership with more than 1000 partners and a strong real estate department. This article provides authoritative corroboration of an article in today's Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/society/2017/jun/16/most-of-central-london-hospital-to-be-sold-off-secret-plans-reveal.

The final paragraph in this is:

"The Health Service Journal disclosed last week that the Department of Health was preparing to create six regional public/private partnerships covering all of England that would oversee such sales. The plan, codenamed Project Phoenix, would see the proceeds from asset sales being shared between NHS organisations and private firms. Under the plan, London and the south-east would comprise one giant, and very valuable, area."

Let Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust, the London North West Healthcare NHS Trust and the Collaboration of NW London CCGs deny now that they plan to sell off "surplus" land - however that is defined!

(from: "Private Eye")

Election result boosts NHS campaigners

Details: Published: Thursday, 15 June 2017 10:13

The final general election result - Conservatives 318, Labour 262, SNP 35, Lib Dems 12, DUP 10, Greens 1 and others 10; total 650 - is a stunning rejection of the austerity policies of the previous Government. But it is not quite enough to end them. The DUP appear to be ready to support the Conservatives to give them the slim majority of 2 which they need to continue in power. But this is a very precarious arrangement, and it seems unlikely to survive another year. And the Government is not even talking with the EU about Brexit!

The results in central London are spectacular: only five constituencies - Cities of London & Westminster, Chelsea & Fulham, Richmond Park, Putney and Wimbledon - remained in Conservative hands. Even Kensington was won by Labour - by 30 votes! Further out to the north west Harrow East stayed Conservative. This means that in the "footprint" of the NW London STP which covers 8 boroughs (not constituencies) the only ones with Tory administrations are Westminster, Kensington & Chelsea and Harrow. Pressure on the Labour boroughs which have not condemned the STP will surely increase.

Opinion about the outcome of the election on Conservative policy for the NHS and social care seems divided. On the one hand Chris Ham of the King's Fund foresees little immediate change to the direction of travel. Nigel Edwards of the Nuffield Trust disagrees. The dire state of the NHS is certainly, with Brexit, the first or second most important issue to the electorate, with every part of the UK affected by NHS cuts and closures programmes which are fiercely resisted by corresponding "Save our NHS" or "Save our Local Hospital" campaigns (Ipsos Mori 8th June 2017).

Underneath the jubilation is a nagging worry: the Conservative 2017 manifesto promised on p67 "We will hold NHS England’s leaders to account for delivering their plan to improve patient care. If the current legislative landscape is either slowing implementation or preventing clear national or local accountability, we will consult and make the necessary legislative changes. This includes the NHS’s own internal market, which can fail to act in the interests of patients and creates costly bureaucracy. So we will review the operation of the internal market and, in time for the start of the 2018 financial year, we will make non-legislative changes to remove barriers to the integration of care" [my bold]. The purpose of the abolition of the internal market is, of course, to consolidate Accountable Care Organisations (or Partnership, or Systems). The nature of the "non-legislative" changes is not specified, but in the last twenty years successive governments have made increasing use of Statutory Instruments (secondary, delegated legislation) to bring about legislative changes by stealth and without public scrutiny. George Monbiot explains these insidious, dishonest legislative manoeuvres.

The onus is now on all MPs to study carefully the long lists of proposed SIs and reject offending ones presented casually for voting by remaining MPs on Friday afternoons.....