Case studies: The GPs profiting from NHS scheme
An investigation by the Bureau and the Daily Telegraph reveals that the NHS pays out more than £630m a year in ‘notional rent’ to GPs for their surgeries.
This has risen by more than 70% since 2004, when the figure stood at £370m.
The revelations are set to lead to renewed public concern over the cost of GPs to the taxpayer.
Dr John Couch, a GP in Ashford, Middlesex, has claimed in articles written for a GP magazine he has enjoyed an eight-fold increase in the value of his surgery over the past 25 years.
In an article titled, ‘How I built my retirement nest egg’, Dr Couch writes: ‘The notional rent was helpful in servicing my loan and now that this is paid off, the extra income is very welcome.
‘Where can you get that level of interest and security elsewhere?’ he added.
‘I have yet to meet a property-owning GP who does thing that buying a premises share has been one of their best financial investments,’ he wrote. ‘This is given extra weight by the hordes of private investment companies vying to buy or build GP premises.’
Dr Couch was yesterday unavailable for comment and there is nothing to suggest he has done anything wrong.
The £2.4m surgery
After a valuer recommended that the NHS should pay £120,500 to rent the Bretton Medical Centre near Peterborough in Cambridgeshire, GP Surveyors renegotiated the rent to £142,500.
The facility, with an adjoining pharmacy, is now being marketed by GP Surveyors for sale at £2.4million.
The practice is being offered on a ‘sale and leaseback’ arrangement, meaning that the GPs can withdraw the equity from the practice but continue working at the premises. The purchaser will receive the rent from the NHS.
GP Surveyors describes the deal as an ‘excellent investment opportunity’.
A spokesman for NHS Peterborough said that the rents are reviewed every three years to determine if the payment needs to be raised or lowered. ‘Practices are also able during this period to dispute the rental payments if they feel services or needs have subsequently changed. The District Valuer will again determine the amount in these circumstances,’ said the spokesman.
Rent rises by nearly 60%
The Unsworth Group Practice in Bolton used private surveyors GP Surveyors twice in three years to negotiate with the NHS after independent valuers had calculated the rent due on its surgery. The surgery subsequently saw its rent rise by nearly 60%.
‘On the last two occasions that we have been offered a valuation by the District Valuer, we have appealed and won very substantial increases, 31 per cent on this occasion and 27 per cent last time,’ wrote Michael Watson, the group’s practice manager after the second evaluation. ‘This means that over a period of three years we have had increases totalling about 60 per cent beyond that first offered by the District Valuer.’
The NHS agreed to pay £87,000 a year to rent the surgery from the practice’s doctors.
Additional reporting by Sophie Clayton-Payne from the Bureau and Holly Watt from the Daily Telegraph
Heidi Blake is a reporter for the Daily Telegraph
