Around four in 10 neighbourhood health centres to open by 2030 will be created by refurbishing existing buildings in the NHS estate, the Government has said.
Care minister Karin Smyth confirmed in a written answer in Parliament that 70 of the 120 centres set to open by 2030 will be newly built while the remaining 50 (42%) would be created through ‘repurposing of the existing estate’.
Of these 70 newly built centres, 80% would be built using public private partnerships (PPPs), with the remaining 20% publicly funded.
Ms Smyth said the other 50 centres will be financed by the Primary Care Utilisation and Modernisation Fund. That fund, worth £426m over four years, includes £102m already earmarked for small upgrades at 1,027 GP practices in England during the 2025/26 financial year.
Responding to a written question from Labour MP Ian Lavery, she said: ‘At the Autumn Budget, we announced our commitment to deliver 250 neighbourhood health centres (NHCs) through the NHS Neighbourhood Rebuild Programme.
‘This will deliver NHCs through a mixture of refurbishments, to expand and improve sites over the next three years, and new-build sites opening in the medium term.
‘The first 120 NHCs are due to be operational by 2030, delivered through public private partnerships (PPPs) and public capital. 50 NHCs will be completed through the repurposing of the existing estate with public sector funding, and 70 through new builds by 2030. 80% of the new builds will be PPPs, with a further 20% coming from public sector investment.’
Ahead of last year’s Autumn Budget, the Government announced it would create 250 ‘one stop shop’ centres, with 120 to open by 2030. Health secretary Wes Streeting has previously said GPs will be the ‘cornerstone’ of neighbourhood health services.
Ms Smyth also confirmed there are ‘no plans’ to publish the neighbourhood health centre PPP business case, but that DHSC and the National Infrastructure and Service Transformation Authority (NISTA) will ‘continue to work with the market to further develop the new PPP model for NHCs, with further engagement next year.
Andy Pow, an advisor to the board of the Association of Independent Specialist Medical Accountants (AISMA), said: ‘It has been the case for a while now that large medical centres have been funded through companies operating either within the NHS or externally. Therefore, assuming rent and business rates remain reimbursable in full through the GP contract, the change to a new style of funding is unlikely to look any different to the GP practices who use the new neighbourhood health centres.
‘However, a historic issue for practices moving into larger health centres is the financial burden represented by the service costs involved in running these buildings, which can be a struggle for practices to manage.
‘It is essential that the forthcoming guidance on public private partnerships is clear on how the NHS will deal with the premises service costs, since this will be an important factor in making the new neighbourhood health centres a viable and successful option for GP practices.’
The Government first revealed it would explore private finance to fund neighbourhood health centres in last year’s 10-year health plan, for taxpayer-funded projects ‘in very limited circumstances where they could represent value for money’, but some GP leaders expressed concerns over proposals to reintroduce the model.
Around 130 NHS schemes were funded by the Private Finance Initiative (PFI) until 2018 and are expected to ultimately cost more than £80bn in repayments, with the model criticised for its inflexibility and perceived value for money.
This story was first published on our sister title Pulse.
