Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what the Government's policy is on the future of (a) NHS Property Services Ltd and (b) Community Health Partnerships; what the purpose and remit is of each of those organisations; and for what reasons their functions have not been amalgamated.

NHS Property Services Ltd (NHSPS) was established and became operational on 1 April 2013 to hold many of the properties that had been owned by the primary care trusts that were abolished at that time under the Health and Social Care Act 2012. The ongoing high level objectives for NHS Property Services Ltd can be broadly summarised as:

- The provision of a high quality property service and the achievement of significant efficiency savings; and

- Timely and value for money disposals of assets declared surplus by the National Health Service to release capital for investment for the benefit of frontline NHS services.

Community Health Partnerships (CHP) was established much earlier to improve access to community based health and social care services by improving the NHS estate through public private partnerships established by the NHS Local Improvement Finance Trust (LIFT) programme.

CHP is the public sector shareholder in each of the 49 LIFT Companies across England, which currently provide 339 serviced buildings for the provision of primary and community healthcare. In 2013, CHP became head tenant for the NHS LIFT estate, collecting the rents and ensuring that the buildings are adequately managed to support the provision of the services delivered in them.

Sir Robert Naylor’s review of the NHS estate published in March 2017 recommended the establishment of a ‘powerful new NHS Property Board’. The Government is giving careful consideration to the recommendations of the Naylor Review and will respond in due course.