Waiting for Mr Right

According to its chief executive, Kate Priestley, the new company, which will compete with facilities management firms chasing small NHS projects that fall below the £20m PFI threshold, plans to utilise the property portfolio to create better value.

Individual NHS trusts will be able to decide whether to use Inventures, Priestley said, so it will be up to the new company to sell its services.

So far the response has been positive, she said, with a number of trusts very interested in what Inventures plans to offer. However she admitted that others will look elsewhere for facilities management services.

'What we are trying to do now, in the new company, is provide serviced healthcare accommodation solutions to the NHS,' she said. and that will include a range of facilities management actions depending on what the actual solution is. For instance, if we were to provide serviced office accommodation, they are going to need a lot of property advice and help, Priestley notes. 'What we are looking to do is to get involved in that and offer them (individual NHS trusts) a serviced solution. Within each of the solutions there will be a range of facilities management requirements and that's really the crux of it. Facilities management can cover everything apart from clinical care — the doctors and the nurses,' she continued.

The creation of Inventures signals a move away from traditional property management undertaken by NHS Estates, which Priestley believes is needed to improve services.

Traditionally, NHS Estates has procured products, not services. Priestley says that the proposed changes are needed to ensure that Inventures is well positioned to procure services — an area she believes is going to experience huge growth in the next five years or so. 'What we want to do is bring the best of the private sector and the public sector together. No big business would procure things the way we do and we need to learn from that,' she added.

The supply chain will not be finalised until a partner has been chosen. Priestley likens the pending arrangement to an arranged marriage. 'We know there is going to be a wedding but we don't know who the groom is, and who the groom is, will affect how we put together the supply chain.'

In the absence of any ideological difficulties with either public or private sector providers Priestley anticipates a smooth transfer into the new business. 'We want to be able to offer a mix of solutions which work in different localities. As a PPP we will be able to offer services using NHS staff.

The new company is due to launch in April 2002, and Priestley says she hopes private sector expertise will lift the NHS.

Around £400m of surplus NHS land will be sold off, and a multimillion pound contract to run and supply services for remaining property awarded.

At the moment more than 200 NHS properties are considered surplus. Thirty-eight additional properties are already on the market (see factfile). Of the 200 properties up for sale at least 121 will be transferred to Inventures, but this number may increase if the properties currently on the market are not sold.

About 25 per cent of the 14 bids for the joint venture are from individual companies and 'a number of them are big players in the service industry'. The remaining three-quarters are consortia bids that include facilities management firms, property developers and builders.

Priestley said the contract would be flexible and will largely depend on the eventual owner, but she hoped that Inventures and the new partner would offer a broad range of facilities and services — from traditional hard facilities management to sterilisation plants and pathology labs.

A preferred bidder is to be named in early autumn, with the deal finalised early next year.

Under another heading — NHS International — the NHS is also 'committed' to exporting its ideas.

Priestley said that NHS International is currently bidding for a contract abroad, but she refused to name the country because of negotiations.