# Another big bill for the £24m health centre that costs the NHS £2m a year to run and NEVER used



## Northerner (Mar 4, 2019)

Another £1.5m could be spent turning part of a brand new health centre into OFFICE space because the NHS services it was originally intended for can’t afford the rent.

As previously reported, the Altrincham Health and Wellbeing Centre - planned as a cutting-edge new health hub for south Trafford - cost £24m to build, before health chiefs then discovered local GP practices and other services were unwilling to move in.

Tenants such as St John’s Medical Centre, Greater Manchester Health NHS Trust, Pennine Community Services and Barrington medical centre had been lined up to take up tenancies last autumn, while there would also have been a minor surgery suite and a heart failure clinic.

But concerns over the amount of rent meant that those NHS services never moved in - and to date the only organisation currently operating in the hub is a library.

In the meantime, the NHS still has had to pay around £2.35m running costs a year, even though not a single patient has so far used the centre.

https://www.manchestereveningnews.c...ter-news/another-big-bill-24m-health-15915791

Sounds like a Chris Grayling project


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## Ralph-YK (Mar 4, 2019)

Really, did no one check what the rend would be before they built the place?  Or did someone get it wrong?  Actually, I can see that actually happening!


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## mikeyB (Mar 4, 2019)

Who actually owns the building?


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## Bruce Stephens (Mar 4, 2019)

mikeyB said:


> Who actually owns the building?



http://altrincham.today/2016/09/29/...eing-centre-public-invited-information-event/

The event comes as it’s confirmed that developer Citybranch has agreed a £35m deal with Canada Life to fund the construction of the new facility, to be known as the South Trafford Health & Wellbeing Centre.

The developer has also agreed to fully let the 88,000 sq ft hub to the NHS Property Services on a 30-year income strip lease, a structure which allows the NHS to acquire the freehold interest at the end of the period for £1.​
So I presume the developer owns it (or maybe Canada Life). (Presuming this 2016 story is describing the plan as continued.)

Adam Gross, director at Citybranch, said: “This is an entirely new approach to health and social care delivery that enables the co-location of services and creates an exemplar template for other public bodies to follow.

“It also allows the NHS to dispose of assets that are no longer fit-for-purpose and enter into highly-favourable arrangements without the need to raise any capital expenditure. The income strip lease will give the tenant complete control over the management, running and future ownership of the building – a big step forward from the PFI model traditionally used by the NHS.”​


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## mikeyB (Mar 4, 2019)

Thanks for that Bruce.

So the NHS have the lease for the building, and they are charging the NHS folk who could move in too high a rent. Not a great idea as a business model, for sure. Someone hasn’t done their sums properly. It may be an improvement on PFI, but it’s still private companies profiting from the NHS.

It’s not as if there isn’t enough money around to build NHS property ‘in house’. I’d rather have a modern health service than an an expensive way of getting across London quicker. That cost of that building wouldn’t even buy one wing of an F35 aircraft that we’ve ordered for our aircraft carriers.


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## Northerner (Mar 4, 2019)

mikeyB said:


> It’s not as if there isn’t enough money around to build NHS property ‘in house’. I’d rather have a modern health service than an an expensive way of getting across London quicker. That cost of that building wouldn’t even buy one wing of an F35 aircraft that we’ve ordered for our aircraft carriers.


Isn't it all to do with where it appears on the government's balance sheet? Basically, an accounting trick to con the public


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## trophywench (Mar 6, 2019)

There's some crap going on for sure - Carillon going bump has caused at least two enormous hospital buildings be abandoned leaving the hospitals to carry on coping with far past their sell by dates and falling apart Victorian buildings causing their own high ongoing maintenance costs - that's in Birmingham/Sandwell and Liverpool BTW.


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## Docb (Mar 6, 2019)

Northerner said:


> Isn't it all to do with where it appears on the government's balance sheet? Basically, an accounting trick to con the public



Its more down to greed.  The moment a big wedge is allocated from tax funding for some project or other then every weasel creeps out of their hiding place to try and get a hand on it and as soon as it is used up they creep back whether the thing is finished or not.  The commission takers will have got lumps of it and the directors of the building companies would have got new cars and lumps sums paid into their pension funds.  The public purse will be left to pick up the pieces.  Its the downside of a capitalist economy.


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## mikeyB (Mar 7, 2019)

I believe Karl Marx expressed similar views. He was right, though others corrupted his ideas, and still do. 

Mind you, most Americans think the NHS is a commie idea.


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## Docb (Mar 7, 2019)

Marx also thought that a bunch of idealists could run something better than people who knew what they were doing.  There are upsides and downsides to everything.


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