Friday, August 20, 2004
ExcellCare Ltd, a joint venture between Equion and the Bank of Scotland, has signed a £50m public private sector partnership contract with the Department of Health, through Partnerships for Health, to deliver 21st century primary health and social care facilities in Leicester. The agreement will be delivered under the Local Improvement Finance Trust (LIFT) initiative.
Leicester is the fourth of ExcellCare's six LIFT projects to reach financial close after Sandwell in January, Greater Nottingham in June and MaST (Manchester, Salford and Trafford) in July. The project will provide local communities with improved access to a greater range of health and community care services brought together onto single sites, and include delivery of a major ‘one-stop’ centre in Charnwood. The centre will accommodate 19 service providers including GP practices, mental health services, older persons and family services, dentists, community nurses, outpatients, physiotherapy and a pharmacy. The first phase of the project will cost around £9 million and include two separate schemes in Narborough Road and St Peters. Work will begin later this month with the first two schemes due to be operational by May 2006. Public sector participants in the Leicester LIFT are Eastern Leicester Primary Care Trust, Leicester City West Primary Care Trust and Leicestershire Partnerships NHS Trust. ExcellCare Chief Executive, Alan Prigmore, said: “This is ExcellCare’s fourth LIFT project and we will build on our track-record within the sector to develop flexible solutions to meet the requirements of health and other service requirements for local communities, now and in the future. We look forward to working with our public sector partners to deliver a step-up in the range, quality and accessibility of local services in Leicester.” David Bacon, Financial Director of Leicester City West PCT and public sector representative on the Leicester LIFTCo board said: “For some time the health and social care agencies in the city have wanted to provide their communities with extensive, up-to-the-minute services tailored to meet the unique needs of local people. Now with Leicester LIFTCo we can realise that aim.” John Hutton MP said: “Today’s announcement will see the public and private sectors working together to help improve the quality of local NHS services. It will bring services to the people that matter most: the patients of St Peter’s Healthcare Centre and Narborough Road Primary Care Centre. I pay particular tribute to the local consortium that has designed facilities that are able to provide additional care such as mental health services and sexual health services. This is a trailblazing scheme and I look forward to seeing the benefits it will bring to the area.” -Ends- Media Enquiries for ExcellCare: Christine Jones 020 7901 3200 Notes to Editors · Laing O’Rourke will lead construction. Lead architects are The Design Bureau. · The financial advisers to ExcellCare are PricewaterhouseCoopers and the legal advisers are Denton Wilde Sapte. · ExcellCare is preferred partner on two further LIFT schemes in North Nottinghamshire and Southern Derbyshire. · Equion is a specialist provider of facilities in the PFI and PPP markets with a long-term perspective and approach. The company manages and delivers projects from planning and funding through to design, construction and operation. It is actively involved in the management of a wide range of health, police, education, defence and special purpose government facilities including: - the new Norfolk & Norwich, and Queen Elizabeth (Greenwich) Hospitals - the Ministry of Defence Main Building refurbishment in Whitehall - the Joint Services Command and Staff College at Shrivenham - Highlands Secondary School in Enfield - South East Essex College at Southend - four police stations in South London for the Metropolitan police Equion and its parent company, John Laing plc, won the Infrastructure Journal Developer of the Year Award in February 2004. http://www.equion.ltd.uk/ Bank of Scotland’s Corporate Infrastructure Finance team is a leading funder of Public Private Partnership projects. It has funded more than 100 PPP projects and has provided equity investment as part of an integrated funding package to more than 40 projects, equating to £10 billion of project value across the UK and Europe. It has participated in the funding of more than 8,000 acute hospital bed spaces across the UK and is a major investor in the improvement of Britain’s hospitals and health centres, with several more projects currently at preferred bidder stage.
Media Enquiries for Leicester LIFT: Gillian Garratt 07973 188 898