ASSET MANAGEMENT


The power of data in your digital estate


With the Government committing to over £159 billion in core funding, and a further £22.4 billlion in COVID-19 investment, in healthcare in 2022, there is now, ‘more than ever’, a need for NHS Trusts to understand the condition and 'fitness for purpose' of their estates. Here Brook Smith, a Partner at independent construction and property management consultants, RLB UK, and head of Building Surveying in its Birmingham office, argues that against this backdrop, the availability of accurate, timely data in easily accessible form on the condition of buildings and other key ‘estates-related’ Trust ‘assets’ has never been more vital.


With this investment now being made available to Trusts, one of the critical factors in triggering allocated funding is accurately reporting the current status of individual estates and their backlog maintenance profile – both outstanding and pending – as well as how any planned expenditure fits into their Estate Strategy or masterplanning activities. Today, to produce outline business cases and develop these business cases into investment, as well as more effectively managing their built assets, NHS Trusts need to be able to rely on accurate bases of data. Here, however, comes the rub – the most common theme we hear from healthcare professionals in Estates Departments across the country is the lack of confidence or trust in their estate information, with baseline data requiring significant interpretation and filtering by the Trusts’ Estate Departments to establish their current portfolio position. Often data is out of date, and property appraisals, condition surveys, accurate record drawings, and asset registers and other fundamental basics for any effective asset management strategies, have been neglected – due to investment and spending being prioritised elsewhere. This has been further compounded by the overwhelming challenges and pressure that have been put on already stretched healthcare estates teams during the COVID-19 pandemic.


Technology and the data process In essence therefore, what we are finding is that most Trusts are data-rich, but information-poor, with a shortfall of evidence or reports to help them move forward to the funding now released from Government. However, this is a short-term situation, with an opportunity in the long term for Trusts to rebase their asset information, and drive for more effective long-term data-driven asset management solutions with clear insights and trends on their portfolio performance.


Detailed condition survey On a room-by-room-basis


Key player: •Survey team


Annual review


Of condition of estate assets Key player:


•Estates manager Figure 1: Strategic investment planning


Longer-term planning to deal with low-risk items and anticipated backlog


Key player: •Investment planning team


Annual investment planning


Risk prioritised items identified and dealt with Key players:


•Estates manager •Trust board


Risk assessment and validation


Of estates assets in condition C and below


Key players: •Survey team


•Estates review team


The Asset Management Cycle – based on a graph from the NHS Estatecode risk-based methodology.


Costing


For estates assets to reach condition B (backlog maintenance costs) and repair costs


Key player: •Survey team


Condition ranking On a block basis for


internal sub-elements, and a site basis for


external sub-elements Key players:


•Survey team leader •Estates manager


As we have seen the built environment digitalise overnight to react to the challenges of the pandemic, we have also seen advancements in technology, in both data collection and data presentation, resulting in more readily available data for Estates managers, as well as being shared more easily with their stakeholders. While a trusted spreadsheet is a useful tool, the improvements to both software and hardware make data collection and maintenance a more suitable solution for maintaining a single version of the truth. I can remember first undertaking Six Facet Surveys over 15 years ago, with hard


copy versions of reports printed out and issued in a lever arch folder, or often bound into a document with a written report that summarised the data in a word-processed format to present the overall findings of the property appraisal with some basic tabulated financial summaries.


More accessible Six Facet Surveys Having completed hundreds of Six Facet surveys since them, I have observed their journey into a more intelligent spreadsheet format with basic dashboard information, progressing into a CAFM


January 2022 Health Estate Journal 53


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