Biddulph Primary Care Centre, Staffordshire, is one of the buildings delivered under the NHS LIFT programme

A report published this week explores the value of the LIFT portfolio – highlighting the benefits and advantages of the buildings to local communities and health systems, as well as comparing the relative cost of the LIFT estate to broader NHS and commercial infrastructure.

PwC’s independent analysis is presented in their report entitled The NHS Local Improvement Finance Trust (LIFT): Occupancy Cost Assessment.

This finds that the LIFT estate has delivered a host of qualitative and quantitative benefits, including:

• The LIFT estate has improved the quality and accessibility of services for patients and communities by providing modern, fit-for-purpose and integrated facilities that are flexible and adaptable
• LIFT provides long-term cost certainty to NHS tenants via comprehensive lease agreements. Lease payments for tenants are fixed at lease agreement and increase in line with retail price inflation (RPI) only
• By comparison commercial rents have increased by 25% in the last seven years. In addition, while the rental payment for LIFT premises is higher than a typical commercial development, LIFT agreements provide more services, hence value, than would be offered under standard commercial alternatives
• LIFT costs include maintenance and lifecycle and provide value for money through ensuring there is no backlog maintenance, reducing the significant and increasing cost and risk of maintaining an ageing NHS estate elsewhere

Nafees Arif, chief financial officer at Community Health Partnerships (CHP), said: “It is clear from this report that the LIFT estate presents value for money and other significant benefits to the NHS, its patients, and staff.

“Increasing utilisation of the LIFT buildings as core health assets will enable the NHS to deliver the Government’s mission, drive up NHS productivity, and transform care delivery, while achieving greater value.

“The LIFT buildings are modern, well-maintained facilities in community settings and through our ability to repurpose and adapt these at pace, we can support the NHS with estate solutions that enable the shift of services into local communities, drive up productivity, and unlock value from the current physical infrastructure.”

The report evidences the continuing importance of the LIFT buildings, underlining the fact that they are largely located in areas of high health needs and ideally placed to support the Government’s ambition of a Neighbourhood Health Service with more prevention and healthcare delivered locally.

Dan Whittle, associate director of finance at PwC, said: “While headline occupancy costs can be perceived as expensive, our analysis highlights the known underlying under-investment in maintenance across the wider estate.

“The analysis we performed using the ERIC data and the LIFT structure re-emphasised that value for money in estates needs to be a balanced assessment.

“Headline costs can be misleading and value for money needs to consider wider factors, including maintenance behaviours.

“Managing the estates portfolio will be a continuing challenge and the evolution of ICB estates strategies should allow for more-joined-up masterplanning.

“Our work with CHP re-emphasises that value for money is a broader measure than a headline occupancy price and, aligned to the Darzi findings, ignoring the true cost of a properly-maintained estate is a false economy.”

You can read more and download the report here CHP PWC Value Report.

What is LIFT?

The NHS LIFT Programme (Local Improvement Finance Trust) is a partnership of the public and private sectors which supports, improves, and delivers lasting transformation of the NHS primary care and community health estate.

Community Health Partnerships (CHP) delivers this programme through 49 individual LIFT companies, which have delivered 342 schemes and £2.5bn of capital investment.

CHP is wholly owned by the Department of Health and Social Care which established the programme in 2000 to support the transformation of primary care and increase community access to services across local areas.

LIFT companies are Public Private Partnerships (PPPs) with 40% public and 60% private ownership.

CHP is the 40% shareholder on all but seven LIFT companies where 10 local authorities – Manchester, Salford, Trafford, Leeds, Newcastle, North Tyneside, Nottingham, Barnsley, Doncaster and Newham – are also shareholders.

LIFT has brought about the largest and most-concentrated investment by the NHS and the private sector in the primary health care and community estate.

And it was purposefully designed to support better patient outcomes, make services more accessible for those in greatest need, and provide modern, purpose-built environments for staff using off government debt-funded solutions.

LIFT also delivers strategic estate planning and development capability, which ensures maximum return from health investment.

The programme has also brought a plethora of health and care services together under one roof.

The co-location of a range of service providers in one building has enabled better service integration, and, in turn, facilitated improved joint working as well as better integration of primary and secondary care, community health, and local authority services.

Forty-four of the LIFT buildings are integrated joint service centres with local authorities, including 24 with community libraries. There are also eight purpose-built health, fitness, and wellbeing centres with swimming facilities.