NHS Property Services and Community Health Partnerships win One Team Award

During the pandemic the two NHS property companies, owned by the Department of Health and Social Care, worked together with NHS England and Improvement to form a strong estates response. This joint approach enabled the NHS to establish the best estate solutions for each option as circumstances changed, working through occupation and finance arrangements flexibly to agree practical solutions.

This included providing:

• 1,100 + additional beds;
• Modified primary care estate for hot and cold sites, including more than 11,500 additional Facilities Management (FM) service requests including deep cleans;
• Dynamic expert technical advice across NHS partners (e.g. modular buildings, planning, risk assessments and assurance).

This culminated in a ‘One Team’ approach delivering estate solutions for the vaccine programme - establishing 350+ vaccination sites and supporting the provision of millions of vaccinations.

The combined broad capability and capacity – including strategic asset management, delivery and FM – meant the two organisations were able to fully own speedy, effective end-to-end delivery, sharing resource, learning and expertise to meet clinician and patient needs.

It has also been fantastic to be recognised by our NHS partners, who have given brilliant feedback nationwide… we have been called “Quite literally a life-saver!”.

This category in the awards attracted the most entries of any category so to win was particularly exciting for the whole team, who have worked so hard throughout the pandemic to support NHS colleagues and patients.

“It is wonderful to be acknowledged by the Government Property Profession with this award”, said Simon Taylor, Portfolio Optimisation Director at NHS Property Services. “We would like to acknowledge our colleagues at NHS England & Improvement and the wider NHS partners across the country who have brilliantly overseen the overall vaccine programme. As property companies working across primary and community care we have shown agility to rapidly adapt and optimise our estate throughout the pandemic, culminating in the support to the vaccine programme. The estate response across our companies, and the wider NHS, has been inspiring, and this has only been possible with strong collaboration and communication at all levels and a shared sense of purpose and urgency.”

“Although pulling on all parts of our respective organisations, from my perspective this is a really an award for all our brilliant front-line staff who have worked tirelessly through the pandemic keeping our health estate safe, secure, and available and responding to constant change – they are hidden heroes”.

“This award is a testament to the hard work, commitment and expertise of both property companies,” said Dr Sue O’Connell, CEO of CHP. “During a uniquely challenging year, we have pooled our expertise and resources to ensure that we supported an NHS which was dealing with unprecedented demand.  We are proud to have this work recognised and we look forward to continuing to build on our working relationship for the benefit of patients, clinicians and communities.”

CHP and NHSPS account for 15% of the NHS estate (c3,300 properties, c8,000 staff, including frontline FM services), and a focus on primary and community care estate.