Offices make up a significant proportion of the NHS estate, with NHS Property Services (NHSPS) portfolio alone covering approximately 300 office holdings, spanning 320,000 sqm and serving multiple NHS bodies.
We therefore have a huge opportunity to create better working environments for NHS staff, and to boost productivity and wellbeing via enabling smarter working and collaboration. There is also a significant potential to drive efficiencies and system savings, and create a more sustainable estate for the NHS through proactive management of the office estate.
Smarter working requires a holistic approach, including:
Workplace
design
Culture
change
Technology
and tools
Our smarter working journey
The Covid-19 pandemic has transformed how we live, including how we work. NHS Property Services’ expertise in estates and facilities management has put us in good stead for this transition to smarter working, and our specialised National Office Programme team already has rich experience of optimising and designing the NHS office estate to encourage more agile ways of working.
Covid-19 accelerated and formalised our smarter working policy, and we are now building a more agile workforce across both office-based and frontline colleagues, to boost colleague wellbeing and productivity, and best serve our NHS customers.
Supporting the wider NHS
As we enter our first period of true 'hybrid' working, we are rapidly developing our expertise and experience and are keen to share our learnings with the wider NHS.
We apply smarter working principles to all NHS office projects, creating better working environments for NHS staff to boost productivity, collaboration and wellbeing. In 2020/21 our dedicated National Office Programme team delivered 45 customer office projects, which supported 4,200 NHS staff, reduced 9,200sqm of underused space, and generated £18 million in savings to be reinvested in the NHS.
As well as managing the offices in our own portfolio, we provide consultancy services to the wider health sector including the Department of Health and Social Care office portfolio and the wider NHS office estate.
