Conclusion 3

Outstanding debt from tenants has almost tripled to £576 million. Between March 2014 and March 2019, outstanding debt from unpaid bills for rent, facilities management services and service charges increased from £210 million to £576 million. Only 55% of the debt is for bills issued in 2018–19, the rest of the debt relates to bills NHS Property Services issued in previous years. About half of the current debt is subject to review because it has been challenged by tenants for several reasons, including inaccurate information or inappropriate apportionment of costs. It has been suggested to the Committee that in some cases tenants carry the liability in their accounts while disputes are ongoing. The time wasted in issuing, challenging, pursuing and correcting contested invoices is not a good use of over-stretched NHS resources which should be focused on healthcare delivery. From 2015–16 to 2018– 19, the average number of days that tenants took to pay their bills increased from 91 days to 214 days. Over the last five years NHS Property Services has written off £110 million of debt. NHS Property Services said that it plans to be more robust on recovering the debt and that the dispute resolution process, where tenants challenge bills, needs to work better than it does now in terms of speed and outcome. Recommendation: The Department should set NHS Property Services clear debt recovery targets for current year debt and agree an approach for historic debt. The Department should clarify whether tenants are being expected to carry liabilities in their accounts while disputes are ongoing.