News / Flory clarifies PCT asset rules

Primary care trusts must not enter into agreements on the disposal, acquisition or management of property or interests in land and buildings without the consent of their strategic health authority, NHS deputy chief executive David Flory has said.

In a letter to PCTs and SHAs, he added that where the value of the transaction is £35m or more, PCTs must also gain the consent of the Department of Health.

While the directions do not apply to existing agreements or those relating to the reimbursement of GP premises costs, they do apply to new transactions and those for which contracts have yet to be signed.

The clarification was issued alongside guidance on the future of new health centres commissioned under the Equitable access programme in 2008/09.

Dame Barbara Hakin, national managing director of commissioning development, said the planned NHS Commissioning Board, not GP consortia, would inherit contractual responsibility for the centres. Up to 100 are due to be opened by April 2013.

The centres provide services to a registered list of patients and non-registered patients on a walk-in basis. At the end of the contract period – on average five years – the commissioning board would re-evaluate the case for providing the former in each centre. Local GP consortia would decide whether to recommission walk-in services.

The Department said the transfer of PCT estate to aspirant community foundation trusts will be funded by issuing public dividend capital to the community trust. The properties to be transferred must be identified by the end of this financial year and the transaction completed by September 2011.