NHS England has published ‘Delivering productivity through the NHS estate’, a detailed review of estates costs and performance in 2022/23 compared to Lord Carter’s 2016 report ‘Operational productivity and performance in English NHS acute hospitals.’
Through analysis of ERIC submissions, NHS England reports some significant progress over the last nine years against many of the key ambitions set out by Lord Carter. In some cases, the targets detailed by the productivity review have been exceeded.
In a post on LinkedIn, Jacqui Rock, Chief Commercial Officer at NHS England says: “In 2016 Lord Carter’s review identified potential savings of £1.275 billion by improving estate efficiency across the NHS. I am proud to announce that the NHS Estates and Facilities community is far exceeding these targets and has reduced the ongoing cost of their services by £2.24 billion or £16 per attendance.” This is a reduction of 17%.
At the same time, the number of patients using these facilities has increased by 13.8 million.
Significant achievements
• Cost of occupancy has fallen by £0.24 billion – from £12.2 billion in 2014/15 to £11.9 billion in 2022/23 (in 2022/23 values)
• Non-clinical occupied floor area has fallen from 44% to 33% of the total estate; Lord Carter’s target was 35%, and there is still more to come as Trusts aim to integrate new technologies and modern working methods to reduce non-clinical space to below 30%
• Floor area used for each patient attendance has decreased by 7%
• Under-utilised occupied floor area has dropped to 1.9% from 4.4%
• More than 1,850 energy-efficiency schemes have been implemented since 2018/19; 81 new combined heat and power units have been installed; 47% of the estate is now using LED lighting; and as of 2022/23, the last coal heating system has been removed.
The full report provides far more detail and analysis around these figures and trends.
The national estates team is now shifting its focus to how the E&F community can boost productivity further, by investing in failing infrastructure and supporting more effective operating models.
