GP Surgeries
(asked on 21st October 2024) - View Source
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment he has made of the potential implications for his policies of NHS England's review entitled General Practice Premises Policy Review, published on 27 June 2019; and whether his Department plans to ensure that leases for GP practices are assigned to NHS bodies.
The GP Premises Policy Review suggested the need to simplify the Premises Costs Directions (PCDs). The PCDs were revised and published on 9 May 2024 and came into force on 10 May 2024. They are available at the following link:
Whilst NHS England has delegated the power to hold leases to integrated care boards (ICBs), the GP Contract terms ordinarily require the Contractor to hold the premises liability.
To bring ICBs into these leasing arrangements would require capitalisation under the International Financial Accounting Standard IFRS16 and limited National Health Service capital budgets would have to be diverted to offset this commitment, in addition to the payment of rents against the properties.
ICBs do hold the power to step into such operational leases. A more appropriate way of managing the potential issue is for ICBs to exercise its power to step in to leases only where it is an action of last resort, or by exception, to ensure that vital capital allocations are not adversely affected and continue to be directly invested in primary care estate to provide key improvements and expansion to support patient and service growth.
Given where the liabilities lie within contracts and the power held by ICBs to provide exceptional support, NHS England currently only accepts assignment of general practice leases as an action of last resort or by exception.