Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department plans to take to ensure that strategic estates planning services to support STPs will be provided by NHS employed staff and not through external consultancy arrangements.

In order to build greater capability within the National Health Service, we have established a single, integrated strategic estates planning team to support sustainability and transformation partnerships in delivering their transformation plans. The team will be a centre of expertise and primary source of support on strategic estates planning advice and report to the NHS Property Board. A permanent director for this team will be recruited shortly. NHS organisations may continue to seek other sources of advice, for example on specialist, legal or technical issues, where they feel such support is necessary.