About Community Health Partnerships
Community Health Partnerships (CHP) is part of the NHS family, and manages 308 healthcare properties across England developed via NHS Local Improvement Finance Trusts (LIFT) Public Private Partnerships. Owned by the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC), CHP works in partnership with local health and care systems to provide innovative and sustainable spaces for patient care.
The LIFT portfolio comprises 5% of the NHS estate. These health facilities provide high quality spaces for the co-location and integration of health and social care services delivered in local neighbourhoods, especially in areas of high health need. CHP buildings are multi-use, home to a mix of tenants and services including GP practices, hospital trusts, community health providers, mental health trusts, pharmacies, diagnostic services, outpatient clinics, and more. CHP enables the shift of clinical services from hospitals into communities, supporting the delivery of neighbourhood health services.
Piloting NHS Open Space in CHP buildings
With challenges related to underutilised spaces and administrative pressure, CHP sought to pilot a solution that could provide a shared platform, with the potential to improve utilisation and enhance cost recovery. This case study explores how NHS Open Space (Open Space) addressed these needs through a structured pilot in 18 CHP buildings in two ICB areas (South East London ICB and Staffordshire and Stoke-on-Trent ICB), to understand if its room booking platform could improve CHP’s challenges, and if so, be rolled out across more of its estate.
The challenges
CHP has faced challenges in the management of room bookings:
- Bookable space utilisation: Without an upfront payment mechanism, bookable spaces are often booked but not used, making them unavailable for others.
- Cost recovery issues: Invoicing in arrears for bookings has led to outstanding debt and poor cash flow, reducing overall income for ICBs from bookable spaces.
- Room user reach: CHP’s current platform TAP, is a single landlord platform with no functionality to promote bookable spaces to a larger pre-vetted healthcare provider database to increase space usage.
- System user experience: CHP’s existing room booking platform, TAP, does not enable room users to self-register or manage their accounts. To register and set up new users, room users must complete a form request for each user, creating more administration for both room bookers and CHP staff. In addition, the TAP platform does not include room photos or floor plans.
Recognising these challenges, CHP explored Open Space as a potential solution.
The solution
How Open Space addressed CHP’s challenges.
Open Space is an all-in-one space management solution, developed by NHS Property Services (NHSPS). The solution helps landlords understand, manage and optimise their estate so that they can maximise its value to support the NHS. Open Space’s easy-to-use booking system allows landlords to either better manage their internal space and drive usage or open it to the marketplace and enable pre-vetted external healthcare providers to book rooms across their estate. The system is supported by advanced data and analytics, featuring intuitive dashboards, providing comprehensive insights into estate usage and trends.
As an NHS landlord, NHSPS has successfully rolled out Open Space to over 200 of its NHS properties. It was this blueprint for success, along with the opportunity for a shared system among other NHS estate landlords, that enabled CHP to explore it as a solution.
The CHP Open Space pilot
To assess the potential benefits of Open Space, CHP ran a three-month pilot programme in Spring 2024, across 18 properties with 151 bookable rooms. The pilot involved working in partnership with two Integrated Care Boards (ICBs), South East London ICB and Staffordshire and Stoke-on-Trent ICB, who were eager to participate. This provided the opportunity to launch the platform in two different local health economies – a dense urban area and one with a wide spread of buildings across towns. The pilot allowed the CHP team to test the platform, assess its benefits, refine processes, and gather insights before a potential wider roll out.
CHP was supported by the Open Space team during the onboarding phase, ensuring the smooth running of the pilot. This included support with templates, uploading photos and information, and testing before the system went live for 18 CHP buildings.
The CHP Open Space pilot findings
83% positive rating
Open Space’s easy-to-use booking platform was praised by tenants, room bookers and CHP colleagues. When surveyed, 62% of respondents confirmed Open Space to be more user friendly than previous systems, 79% would be more likely to book space in a CHP building in the future, and 83% gave the platform a positive three-, four- or five-star review.
21.8% are new users
Adopting Open Space has enabled CHP tenants and other external healthcare providers to easily discover and book available clinical and non-clinical spaces, leading to a broader range of services for patients being delivered in local neighbourhoods.
Promoting available rooms is easier with Open Space’s pre-existing database of pre-vetted healthcare providers within the user-friendly system, where room bookers can be directed to manage their own bookings via a self-service function.
After the pilot finished, CHP identified that 21.8% of bookings were made by new users of CHP bookable space, highlighting the utilisation benefits of Open Space.
In addition, over 12% of existing bookings migrated onto Open Space during the pilot were deemed to be no longer required, following review by the room booker. Therefore, they cancelled the sessions. This ensured no rooms were booked but not used, making more clinical and non-clinical rooms available for other users, to deliver more services to patients in local communities.
Internally, CHP is also able to easily view and book available space for community events and other social value initiatives, like Buildings at the Heart of the Community.
Centralised reporting
CHP can provide room booking organisations with transparent data on bookings, utilisation rates, income, and expenditure. This includes the number of bookings made, utilisation percentage, fees paid, and income received month on month – all split at property, room, and room user level. At the same time, CHP’s internal reporting on room usage has become significantly more streamlined and efficient.
100% reduction in time spent on room user registration
CHP identified a marked improvement in estate management efficiencies:
- System user registration: Due to Open Space’s self-registration functionality and vetting process carried out by NHSPS, CHP achieved a 100% reduction in CHP colleague time spent registering room bookers.
- Self-service: For room bookers and users, having autonomy to manage their own bookings and user profiles, saved significant time for them and minimised the need to log queries.
- Room user management by CHP colleagues: 6% overall reduction (based on the 18 properties and 151 rooms within the pilot) in CHP bookable system administration. Room users can self-manage bookings, reducing queries directed to CHP colleagues. Prior to moving to Open Space, in the Staffordshire and Stoke-on-Trent ICB area, a manual Outlook process was in place where all bookings and amendments were made following a request via email, phone or in person, by the room user. However, due to Open Space’s user self-booking functionality, once Open Space was rolled out, this was no longer required and delivered efficiencies for staff and users.
- Helpdesk: Open Space’s helpdesk team triage issues, ensuring only complex cases reach CHP teams, allowing colleagues to focus their time on other priorities.
Increased by 66.4%
Before Open Space, CHP relied on invoicing in arrears, which led to inconsistent payments. Open Space’s upfront payment model has significantly improved booking income collection for both ICB areas in the pilot. When comparing the pilot timeframe with the same booking period in previous years, cost recovery increased by 66.4%, with 99% cost recovery forecast once the solution is rolled out more widely.
Enhanced flexibility and future adaptations
Open Space’s flexibility has enabled CHP to customise the system for its needs:
- Pay-as-you-go bookings: Straightforward for tenants and providers to book sessional space, with no long-term contracts.
- Room user discounts: This feature has meant CHP is able to assign discounts to organisational accounts based on specific agreements with ICBs and room user organisations.
- Restricted-use rooms: Booking rules allow CHP to accommodate different room user needs, such as allocating rooms for specific users that are not visible to everyone. This feature is useful if space is demised but shared between multiple building tenants, and, if appropriate, can then be booked free of charge if the space is already paid for via rent.
The benefits of Open Space for ICBs and room users
- A shared system-wide platform: Allowing room users to access and book rooms across multiple locations and landlord estates (NHSPS and CHP).
- Online portal: Enabling room users to view building details, room photographs and floor plans, availability, accessibility information, and opening hours online, without the need to visit a location or use a manual process.
- Full user-led registration and account management: Allowing organisations to self-register, manage their organisation's user access, and manage financial approvals and monitoring.
- User experience: A modern, intuitive and user-friendly platform, providing users with self-serve functionality to manage all elements of room bookings, including access to reports – enhancing user satisfaction.
- Open Space help desk: Organisations can offer room users a help desk service, email and phone number, to provide support, answer system queries and triage issues.
- Scalable for the CHP portfolio: Tried and tested by NHSPS.
- Upfront payment model: Payment via direct debit or credit card, improving cost recovery for ICBs and providing an opportunity for rationalisation of existing room bookings.
- 7,000+ pre-vetted healthcare provider users on Open Space: The potential to improve bookable space utilisation and the provision of more services to patients.
Looking ahead
By adopting Open Space, CHP has improved bookable room user experience, streamlined space booking, improved cost recovery, and reduced administration workload. The platform has also provided ICBs and room booking organisations with tangible insights.
Following the successful pilot in 2024, CHP secured approval for a wider Open Space rollout to more CHP buildings in its portfolio. Currently in the initial phase, with 20 buildings in the CHP portfolio using Open Space, the CHP team has adopted a phased approach, working with ICBs to ensure a structured expansion, addressing specific needs and identifying benefits. This rollout of the Open Space booking platform supports the shift of care closer to home as part of the government’s vision for neighbourhood health services, as set out in the 10 Year Health Plan.
As the roll out continues, CHP is committed to optimising the system further, ensuring that NHS LIFT facilities are well used and accessible to a wide range of clinical and non-clinical services. This enables NHS staff to deliver excellent quality care, resulting in improved patient outcomes and experiences.
The government has set out its mission to build an NHS fit for the future, driving the shift of care closer to home as part of its vision for neighbourhood health services; further adoption of the Open Space platform across CHP buildings supports this endeavour.
Click here for more on CHP’s Open Space roll out.
To learn more about NHS Open Space, get in touch with one of the team via openspacepartnerships@property.nhs.uk.
