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<p>On 29 September, the Government announced the largest hospital building programme
in a generation as part of a new Health Infrastructure Plan (HIP) that is backed by
a long-term programme of investment. The plan’s new, strategic approach will ensure
the health service will have world-class facilities for patients and staff for the
long term.</p><p>The HIP1 and HIP2 schemes were selected through the following process:</p><p>NHS
England and NHS Improvement conducted a strategic assessment of hospital estates and
came up with a list of priority schemes. These were selected on the basis of age and/or
where a combination of other metrics that indicated a high need for investment in
the estate. This included the consideration of the high value scheme bids submitted
by providers as part of previous sustainability and transformation partnership (STP)
capital rounds, and other relevant previous representations by trusts and STPs. The
other metrics being - Estates and facilities running costs; backlog costs; Critical
Infrastructure Risk (a subset of the highest risk elements of backlog with a potential
for significant impact e.g. fire safety); unused and functionally unsuitable space;
and incidents having an impact on clinical services.</p><p>Based on that, a small
number of schemes were identified as being suitable to fully fund now, given their
advanced level of readiness to deliver in near future. These are the six projects
for HIP1.</p><p>The remaining list of priority schemes was then further filtered based
on a combination of criteria, including the level of Critical Infrastructure Risk
in the estate and an overall check of the regional breakdown (to make sure no regions
were over or under-represented), and engagements through National Health Service regional
teams. This gave us the 21 projects identified to receive seed funding to kick start
their schemes, ready for building in HIP2.</p><p>HIP scheme selection was not specifically
discussed at the NHS Property Board, which did not meet during the period when final
decisions were made. However, the underlying principles and issues have been discussed
previously by the NHS Property Board and members were involved in discussions that
led to the final selection of schemes.</p><p>Schemes will be required to submit business
cases to provide the required standard assurance on the key features including patient
benefits, value for money and commercial terms etc. A number of the six HIP1 schemes
have submitted business cases to NHS Improvement previously but these will need to
be developed further or revised to align with the current scope of their scheme. The
Department is looking to speed up and streamline the business case process and approvals.</p>
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