Driving smarter working and saving £6m for the NHS by consolidating office space

Customers: St George’s, Merton and Wandsworth Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCGs), North East London Commissioning Support Unit (CSU)

NHSPS teams: Property Management, National Office Programme, Construction, Evaluation & Analytics

The CCGs occupying this office space undertook an evaluation of how the building was being used, discovering much vacant and underutilised space, e.g. some floors were at only 30% capacity.

We identified an opportunity to reimagine this space, handing back anything vacant and optimising the remaining space to get the best out of it, becoming more efficient and enable smarter working.

The first break notice on the leases was also coming up fast (June 2018), and so we had to find a solution quickly in order to serve the notice on time.

We worked closely with the CCGs and CSU to establish their office requirements, building a consolidation and reconfiguration strategy that was tailored to their needs.

Our Property Management team negotiated the handback of five of the eight leases to the landlord, leaving three floors to be remodelled. This meant getting creative with the space we had left, optimising it for smarter working for our occupiers.

Our Construction team carried out the £1 million refurbishment project, finding innovative solutions to enable increased density as well as new spaces for collaboration. We negotiated with the landlord for approval on this refurbishment, the underletting, and rectifying the original lease plans.

The occupiers have now moved into their newly refurbished space, and we’ve had great feedback on the new layout, equipment and the improved smarter/flexible working it enables.

The co-location of CCGs and CSU on a smaller yet optimised footprint will encourage more collaborative working, resulting in a more joined-up approach to the region’s healthcare to enable excellent patient care. This office space is now fit for the future, helping to deliver on the NHS Long Term Plan by supporting our NHS workforce so they can flourish.

In terms of savings, getting out of five leases and consolidating the space our occupiers use will help save £6 million for the NHS over five years, which can be diverted to improving patient care elsewhere in the system.