NHSE/NHSI ESTATES FORUM
the HTM was indeed due for publication soon, and that, having reviewed the new guidance, the authors had concluded that the impact on the content from COVID would not be substantial.
Capital to be ‘tight’
Here, Pete Sellars explained that a number of questions were coming in around funding. Several ‘attendees’ enquired whether – with such a sizeable maintenance backlog – there might be the opportunity to re-allocate some of the available capital funding ‘to support the system’, rather than it being spent on the capital programme. Simon Corben responded: “Capital for this year is going to be tight; we need to recalibrate after significant expenditure through the COVID period. We of course received an extra £1.5 bn in capital injected into the estate, of which around £600 m was for critical infrastructure. One thing COVID has highlighted is the importance of a sound and resilient estate; it’s not just the buildings and facilities we look at; it’s the systems that sit beneath the infrastructure that are so vital to us. I’d like to think that, as Directors of Estates, you will be able to have conversations with your Directors of Finance around the appropriateness of expenditure this year, and, equally, that what is going to be retained from Capital to ensure resilience is maintained, particularly in the light of the need for increased activity to reduce the backlog. Please have those conversations, and if they are falling on deaf ears, I’d like to hear about it.”
Digital applications The next question asked – given that COVID had enabled the acceleration of digital applications – was how EFM personnel might best take advantage of this in the future. Simon Corben said: “I think the opportunities for new ways of working that have presented themselves – particularly in the primary care space – are things we need to embrace; elements such as digital appointments. We do, though, need to balance this against the need for face-to-face consultation, because there are examples of digital consultations that haven’t worked so well. When we work through our estates strategies, however, ‘digital’ will be a core component in the model we see being developed for primary care.”
Another audience member asked whether there was ‘a definition for Net Zero’ that could be used when designing current and future projects. Simon Corben said this was already under way, with the Net Zero Action Plan guidance that Fiona Daly and her team within NHSE /NHSI were developing, the aim being publication this September. He added: “We felt, however, that instead of writing any Net Zero strategy – because we were already so involved in the ‘greening the
32 Health Estate Journal May 2021
pandemic. The gentleman also makes a plea that as we emerge from COVID-19, there are webinars and other sessions for shared learning on the subject. Meanwhile, another audience member points out that not everything connected to the pandemic has been negative – especially if you take the EFM workforce’s contribution – and suggests that we pick out what has really worked well, and look at how we bring out those learnings to the benefit of ‘the system’.”
Adrian Eggleton, National Estates Operational Lead, and COVID-19 NHS Estates Lead.
NHS’ agenda – we would progress straight to an action plan that will give you the metrics and tools you can utilise to get to ‘Net Zero’.”
Building upon the goodwill How NHS estates and facilities personnel could ‘build upon the immense goodwill and prominence’ such staff had gained during the pandemic, to ensure that EFM activity was ‘at the front and centre’ of the eight key priorities Simon Corben had spoken about earlier, was the subject of another question. The speaker responded: “In fact I think Estates and Facilities speaks for itself. I was looking at some emails I sent about a year ago when the pandemic was really starting to build, and conversations about how we could get involved, and what we could do. Today, I think we would among the first professional groups to get a call from the EPPR team in terms of setting up a response to a pandemic such as COVID. The whole NHS EFM ‘system’ has done an enormous amount to shine a light on estates and facilities, and it is really important we continue and build upon the relationships we have established at the highest level. I think that this is reflected by the people we have speaking here today, and my interaction with, for example, Simon Stevens’ office, but equally, colleagues at the Treasury, the DH&SC, and other government departments. So, it’s about that at a national level, but locally and regionally, it’s about doing what we do brilliantly, and what we do best, and that has been demonstrated this year.”
Lessons learned
Pete Sellars explained that there had also been a number of questions about ‘lessons learned’ during the COVID pandemic, from which he would pick just a couple. He said: “One attendee has asked whether, ‘when COVID is over’, there will be formal ‘Lessons learned’ guidance, to advise people on how to deal with the next
Simon Corben said a ‘Lessons Learned’ review was already under way, and agreed it was important to focus as much on the positives – of which there were many to showcase – as on the negatives. Another listener/viewer asked if there were any plans to include a statutory compliance metric as part of ERIC information, to allow estates teams to benchmark and understand their comparative performance against their counterparts here. Simon Corben answered: “As you well know, we are re-launching the Premises Assurance Model, which will pick up parts of that statutory compliance, and we will be able to review one another against that in terms of the platform we produce for PAM.”
Attracting new talent
A couple of questions had also come in on ‘staff’, one asking whether Simon Corben and Pete Sellars felt there were opportunities to promote openings in Estates and Facilities, such as apprenticeships, ‘on the back of the huge performance EFM staff have put in over the past year’. Simon Corben responded: “My team and I have often talked recently about just how different working in Estates & Facilities in the NHS is to working in such roles in other sectors, and we really do need to build upon the differences, and the hugely varied opportunities we have. I also,” he continued, “want to ensure that we capitalise on the Integrated Care Systems, in terms of offering greater opportunity across systems for the workforce. On apprenticeships, IHEEM has just launched a Workforce Strategy with HEFMA, and I know there is an apprenticeship programme within it. We are looking to build on that and produce something ‘from the centre’ for exactly that, based around the potential funding available.” With this, time ran out, but Pete Sellars encouraged all attendees to ‘watch very carefully over the next few weeks’ for a ‘big announcement’ from IHEEM about the Institute’s Apprenticeship programme, in conjunction with the successful and well- established scheme that has been running in north-east England for many years, and how the programme would be made available to the rest of the UK. Here, as the session closed, he thanked all attendees, and expressed special thanks to Simon Corben for speaking.
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