NHS proposes to use surplus land for key worker homes

The NHS Homes Alliance has proposed using surplus NHS land to create new homes for health and social care workers to support staff retention and recruitment. A new white paper drawn up by the alliance, which includes representatives from NHS trusts, pension funds, real estate firms, housing associations and developers, suggests using the NHS estate to develop affordable homes near hospitals and clinics. A new taskforce has formed in response to the white paper, consisting of Lord Markham CBE, parliamentary under secretary of state at the Department of Health and Social Care, and housing minister Rachel Maclean. Markham will lead the taskforce “to work through the barriers identified and support the NHS to streamline delivery of this much-needed accommodation to support its vital and valuable workforce”. The report, A People Driven Approach; Delivering NHS Homes, identifies five potential models that can be used to deliver the homes: forming joint ventures with developers; outsourcing arrangements with third-party partners that can provide staff accommodation; development agreements for leases; having integrated care boards marketing the sites to investors or operators; entering agreements with housing associations, developers or student housing providers to take up parts of their sites.  By using medium-term leases lasting 30 to 60 years, the weight of capital currently available through pensions, and a clear brief on who the homes should be for, the paper argues that NHS trusts can facilitate delivery partners to create integrated communities with genuinely affordable rents that support recruitment and retention of health and social care workers. Housing developments should be built based on the specific recruitment and staff retention needs of local health and social care services and provide different types of homes that work for the required staff at all levels of primary, secondary and social care; from junior doctors, nurses and social care workers, to porters and cleaners. The report calls for a government-led, cross-departmental NHS and private sector task force to provide recommendations to enable delivery. The report also suggests the creation of a planning use class for NHS key worker homes to provide a standard approach to reducing delivery risk. One option to get around the problem would be setting a maximum average rental level set as a discount to market rent, including energy costs. The report also proposes exempting key worker housing from affordable housing policies, s106, CIL and for car-light schemes/highways improvements. The authors said while some progress has been made in the delivery of healthcare facilities funded by the sale of land for open-market housing, land assets and the requirements for new clinical facilities do not always align, and the open-market sale has not generally delivered homes for NHS staff. The white paper added that retaining the freehold and entering into partnership arrangements to facilitate residential development can create more economic value for NHS trusts than a capital receipt for freehold disposal. “It will also guarantee delivery of housing units within a timeframe linked to need rather than market economics,” added the report’s authors. “Instead of ‘selling the family silver’ through land disposal, which abandons long-term flexibility for healthcare sites, the NHS should instead realise the potential within and establish a means of delivering homes and communities for NHS and social care staff that will improve quality of life for them and for their patients.” Roli Martin, managing director at Global City Futures and one of the paper’s authors, said: “Instead of selling the family silver, we believe we can put it to work, making better use of the NHS’s assets to deliver homes and communities for NHS and social care staff.  “The NHS needs a strategic approach to utilising its existing land holdings in a way that provides housing and creates community, retaining and nurturing its workforce. The NHS faces a huge challenge and this is a sensible approach to using its assets to secure its future for everyone.” Sarah Hordern, non-executive director at Oxford University Hospitals NHS FT, chief executive at Perspicio, and another of the report’s authors, said: “Good-quality accommodation close to work shouldn’t be a pipe dream for health and social care workers, who are often adding long and expensive commutes on top of demanding shifts.  “We need to ensure that talented people working in the NHS and social care have housing that supports their needs, and can be recruited without the barrier of a lack of decent, affordable places to live close to where they work.  “We have convened an important conversation around the NHS estate and by capitalising on the collaborative strength already building through the NHS Homes Alliance, we can take steps towards fulfilling the potential available in the NHS’s second greatest asset – its land.” To send feedback, e-mail akanksha.soni@eg.co.uk or tweet @AkankshaEG or @EGPropertyNews