FINANCE & LEASING SERVICES
The delivery of the new mental health facil- ity still depends on the fi nal go-ahead from central Government, as Pink explained: “It’s a real process we’ve had to go through because of the value of the contracts, not just a formality, and we’re awaiting ap- proval at the moment. We’re obviously do- ing what we can in terms of working up de- signs and facilities management contracts, but there’s nothing we can do other than sit back and wait until the Treasury makes its mind up.
“We have all of the other approvals – we’ve gone through the PCT, Mersey Care, SHA and DH approval processes.”
The former Walton Hospital was part of the Aintree University Hospitals NHS Founda- tion Trust premises, until the site was sold to mental health trust Mersey Care and the services transferred to elsewhere within the trust.
Pink told us more about the new facility: “It’s mainly for acute cases, where peo- ple need mental healthcare generally for a short period of time so up to around 30 days, to get treatment and then go back and take their place in the community.
“So, it tends to be a place where people need to feel calm and where there are ar- eas for refl ection and exercise, so they can
£20bn savings across the NHS – it’s a huge challenge for the health service. If we are to be successful, we need to work with the NHS to achieve those savings, and we see our role as helping with service redesign and estates rationalisation, rather than just building new facilities forever more.
recuperate and get better before they go back into their homes and communities. There are fi ve wards: two adult acute, one for older acute, one dementia ward and one learning diffi culties ward.”
LSHP has also been working on a similar scheme at the former Skellys car dealer- ship site on Edge Lane, with the combined cost of the two new centres around £48m. The cost pressures in the NHS will mean all trusts and LIFTCos are likely to have to focus more on getting better use out of the existing estate and facilities, and less on grand new building projects, it seems.
Pink said: “Fundamentally, we’re in a pe- riod of change. The PCTs are going to go and they’re obviously shareholders in LIFT and we’re waiting to see where that share- holding will go. That’s one major change that will happen. But we’re keyed right into the QIPP agenda, and the need to make
“We’ve gone through a period, in Liverpool particularly, where we’ve built a number of primary care facilities, which has put capacity into the system to enable major changes in the way services are delivered in the future across the Liverpool patch.
“Liverpool’s Out of Hospital Strategy came out of the big health debate fi ve years ago now, which was the biggest public debate in consultation into primary care in the UK, signed up to by all the GPs: it had real backing from those who worked across the health service. “What we’ve got now is the physical manifestation of that in terms of the built environ- ment, and now there’s a requirement both to rationalise the estate and also to start mov- ing services out of the acute sector and into the community.”
Graham Pink
FOR MORE INFORMATION Visit
www.lshp.co.uk
Chris Lloyd of CSI Leasing poses some questions on asset management – and provides a few answers. T
he looming presence of a £20bn effi - ciency saving target is something that
all trust chief execs and FD’s will be taking into consideration given the structuring of their budgets for the year ahead.
With stretched capital budgets and a re- duction in capital moving forward, the replacement of patient-critical assets such as MRI, CT, Linear Accelerators and ICT equipment to name a few, will prove to be a challenge.
If there is no capital and no plan, assets will continue in use and consequently get older which will increase maintenance, repair and support costs.
What’s the answer? As always there are several, but what do you want to achieve, what are your drivers? How can you meet patient waiting time targets? How can you increase patient throughput? All valid questions I’m sure you’ll agree. There may not be a single answer but it’s a fact that the
48 | national health executive Sep/Oct 11
new technology equipment for, say, imag- ing could drastically improve effi ciency and patient throughput.
But how to acquire this exciting technology – another question to be answered!
Fast forward to fi nancial management of assets; by having fi nance aligned with as- set management, an affordable, fl exible solution could be the most effective way of acquiring assets to perform the services Trusts need, and if you add scalability too, the fi nance solution becomes a vehicle which could bring a totally new approach to a Trust’s asset management without im- pinging on capital charges and in certain cases, even savings on VAT.*
Procurement and Finance departments need to have a joint approach to asset ac- quisition and management; whether for the deployment of IT across offi ces and wards or for patient critical equipment such as MRI, Linac etc. Planning is the key
but a fi nance solution is the enabler. At CSI Leasing we can assist with planning for ICT where disposal of aged equipment, some- times at no cost to the Trust, is one of our core competencies and with ageing medical equipment including its removal.
Working with Trust departments to incor- porate an upgrade or replacement at spe- cifi c points in the contract would ensure that all costs and rentals fall within the appropriate budget and current fi nancial legislation for NHS.
With the right plan we at CSI believe that anything is possible but one thing is for sure; we are here to help you plan, to help you reduce your total cost of ownership.
*Subject to HMRC approval. FOR MORE INFORMATION
Chris Lloyd T: 0114 232 9212 W:
www.csileasing.com
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