Practices leasing premises

Dear colleague,

NHS Property Services: key contacts and update on our work programmes

I am writing to update you with our latest contact information. As Regional Director, I am very keen that our teams are both visible and accessible and that you know who to contact if you need support, advice or information.

I also wanted to update on some of our key priorities and explain some of the important work we are doing to ensure that the business relationships between NHS Property Services and the occupiers of our properties and customers of our services are clear and consistent.

We are focused on delivering best value and reducing the costs of running our properties. These costs have reduced from over £845 million at the launch of the company in April 2013 to around £768 million this financial year.

Secondly, we are focused on streamlining the 4,000 different facilities management contracts we inherited nationally, which will enable us to reduce costs and ensure that services are consistently high quality.

We have also begun a programme to meet with tenants in order to clarify and document the current arrangements for each of our occupiers and customers through agreed heads of terms.

Agreeing these will make transparent for the first time the actual costs of running the estate. We hope this will help our occupiers and customers use space and services more efficiently, while enabling all in the NHS to make informed decisions about the most effective and efficient use of the estate to deliver and improve patient care.

Four main strands of work need to come together for us to clarify the space occupied, the underlying terms of occupation and the services we provide:

• Surveying all buildings and preparing accurate floor plans;
• Verifying all information held about individual properties;
• Reaching agreement for space used and the basic terms on which it is occupied, such as the cost and the length of tenancy;
• Reaching agreement over the facilities management services currently delivered for each occupation and the cost of those services.

This is a phased programme and it may be later this year before a meeting is arranged with you. If you would like to speak to someone in the meantime, I hope the key contact details enclosed are helpful. You can also find an interactive version of this information in our online Contacts Map at www.property.nhs.uk/map.

Should you have any wider issues you would like to discuss, please do not hesitate to get in touch with me directly.

Yours sincerely,

Martin Royal
Regional Director
NHS Property Services

The LMC advice remains that no lease should be signed before taking advice and to that end we attach the details of the specialist surveyor and solicitor who the LMC arranged to provide advice 2 years ago:

Jeremy Hill - Partner

MICHAEL HILL PARTNERSHIP  

0116 204 6302

Tom Mason

Neil Mason Associates

01604 799010