{"id":201857,"date":"2025-10-15T13:20:10","date_gmt":"2025-10-15T13:20:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/201857\/"},"modified":"2025-10-15T13:20:10","modified_gmt":"2025-10-15T13:20:10","slug":"nhs-begs-rachel-reeves-to-let-it-raise-billions-via-private-deals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/201857\/","title":{"rendered":"NHS begs Rachel Reeves to let it raise billions via private deals"},"content":{"rendered":"

NHS bosses are urging Rachel Reeves to allow them to raise billions for modern hospitals and equipment through deals with developers and councils to build homes and shops alongside clinics.<\/p>\n

Senior health leaders say \u201cdysfunctional\u201d Treasury rules are holding back the NHS by preventing them spending on buildings, scanners and IT that are critical to improving care and boosting productivity.<\/p>\n

As the chancellor prepares to raise taxes to fill a gap of \u00a320 billion to \u00a330 billion at next month\u2019s budget, the hospitals\u2019 group NHS Providers accepts that there is no extra cash for the health service to modernise. In a submission to the chancellor, it instead urges Reeves to liberalise spending rules to allow them to raise cash from the private sector, local councils and selling off spare land.<\/p>\n

\u2022 Surgery staff at Great Ormond Street forced to work by phone light<\/a><\/p>\n

NHS infrastructure budgets have been repeatedly raided to support day-to-day spending, contributing to crumbling buildings and a lack of modern equipment that have hampered efforts to improve productivity. A government-ordered report last year found that the NHS<\/a> had sent \u00a337 billion less on capital investment than health services in comparable countries.<\/p>\n

While Labour has increased infrastructure spending, NHS Providers argues that about \u00a38 billion a year more is needed to transform care in line with the government\u2019s ten-year plan, arguing that such investment could also have wider economic benefits.<\/p>\n

Daniel Elkeles, chief executive of NHS Providers, said: \u201cWithout significant capital investment the ten-year health plan is looking touch and go. It really is time for a fresh approach.\u201d<\/p>\n

In a report drawn up with PA Consulting, he argues that self-governing foundation trusts should have freedom to spend day-to-day budgets on infrastructure, and to use surpluses from selling off up to \u00a310 billion of unused land that is lying idle.<\/p>\n

An \u201cNHS investment bank\u201d should be set up to allow parts of the health service to make money by lending surplus cash to other areas trying to invest, he argues.<\/p>\n

Most contentiously, Elkeles wants the Treasury to allow the NHS to bring in private investment, to be serviced out of existing budgets, to get around government spending limits.<\/p>\n

He argues that there is enormous appetite from the private sector to invest, proposing projects that could \u201crevitalise high streets\u201d by using NHS clinics as centrepieces of housing and shopping developments.<\/p>\n

Many hospitals want to build affordable homes for their frontline workers, and the report argues that using private money to build them as part of mixed developments on unused NHS land would offer appealingly predictable returns for investors while also dealing with staff shortages by providing nurses, porters and others with convenient places to live.<\/p>\n

Elkeles said such deals were \u201cblocked by dysfunctional treasury and government departmental rules\u201d, telling Reeves: \u201cThis is that rarest of things \u2014 a win-win-win \u2014 offering the prospect of reduced waiting times, increased economic growth and more housing for key workers.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Treasury has long been deeply sceptical, fearing that it would end up rescuing failed NHS investment decisions while seeing extra spending added to government debt. It has said there are only \u201cvery limited circumstances\u201d where private cash should be used in public services.<\/p>\n

There are also concerns about a repeat of the Blair-era PFI initiative in which hospitals were locked into years of high payments to private contractors and cost taxpayers more than traditional government borrowing. However, NHS chiefs insist there is a way to use private cash without repeating such errors, arguing there is an increasingly urgent need to do so given the lack of government money available.<\/p>\n

\"Prime<\/p>\n

During Tony Blair\u2019s premiership there was a heavy emphasis on private finance initiatives<\/p>\n

CHRIS HARRIS FOR THE TIMES<\/p>\n

Matthew Taylor, chief executive of the NHS Confederation, backed the plan, saying: \u201cMore than a decade of being starved of capital investment has left the NHS estate in a dilapidated condition, with health service staff often having to work in crumbling buildings and use old or outdated equipment.\u201d<\/p>\n

He urged ministers \u201cto allow private capital investment into more parts of the NHS \u2014 including the acute sector \u2014 in order to build new facilities\u201d.<\/p>\n

It adds to growing demands from the health service for private money, after Amanda Pritchard, former chief executive of NHS England, said this year that \u201cwe must consider private capital investment in the NHS\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NHS bosses are urging Rachel Reeves to allow them to raise billions for modern hospitals and equipment through…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":201858,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[43],"tags":[102,2960,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-201857","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-healthcare","8":"tag-health","9":"tag-healthcare","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/201857","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=201857"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/201857\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/201858"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=201857"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=201857"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=201857"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}