Trust shortlists firms for strategic estates partnership

Oxleas Foundation Trust in south east London has confirmed Kajima, Bilfinger RE Asset Management and Health Innovation Partners are in the running.

Health Innovation Partners are a limited company with equal shareholders of Arcadis LLP and Community Solutions Managements Services, a subsidiary of Morgan Sindall Investments.

The Bilfinger bid is from a consortium of Bilfinger GVA, Bilfinger RE Asset Management and Currie & Brown.

Strategic estates partnerships are arrangements between a trust and a company to attract the investment to develop NHS property. The thinking is this gets a better deal from any eventual sale than just selling the land would.

In September, HSJ reported that Hinchingbrooke Health Care Trust had appointed Ryhurst as preferred provider to draw up the plan for how its strategic estates partnership would work. The Cambridgeshire trust would then tender for a partner to carry out the £150m plan.

There have been six strategic estates partnerships formally established to date, the first of which was established by Lancashire Care Foundation Trust with Ryhurst in 2010.

Oxleas, which runs community services in Greenwich, is evaluating the bids and a decision is expected this month.

Meanwhile, Whittington Health Trust in north London is hoping to appoint a company to a strategic estates partnership by June.

The trust operates from 37 different sites across Islington and Haringey.

Whittington chief executive Simon Pleydell last year told a local authority health overview and scrutiny committee that the majority of these sites were no longer fit for purpose.

Minutes of the meeting show he said: “There was a large backlog of maintenance work and the trust had not invested in their estates to the same extent as University College London Hospitals Foundation Trust and the Royal Free London Foundation Trust.”