£1bn Express Lift could get stuck

The credit crunch and competition from ProCure21 could limit workloads under the £1bn NHS Express Lift framework deal, industry experts warned this week.

Laing O'Rourke, Vinci, Skanska and Costain have made a 14-strong shortlist for the deal, alongside LiftCo veterans such as John Laing's Primary Plus and Fulcrum Infrastructure's Building Better Healthcare.

But leading contractors and consultants fear the initiative would bring little work. One contractor said: "It is open to 75 Primary Care Trusts that declined to use NHS Lift the first time round, which isn't promising."

A health consultant added: "Most PCTs already have either ProCure21 or local procurement arrangements, so why swap that for an extra layer of management and the soaring cost of private finance in an uncertain market."

Another contractor said government moves to put PPP and PFI deals on public sector balance sheets would make PCTs wary. "Until they know the impact of that, PCTs will steer clear."

Guildhouse director Tony Fowles defended Express Lift. He said: "It is an excellent initiative that concentrates on the quality of output rather than just putting buildings on the ground. It gets rid of expensive, time-consuming sample schemes and introduces market testing of construction costs."

Sylvie Pierce of Fulcrum Infrastructure's Building Better Health said: "I see this as an opportunity to demonstrate to the 75 PCTs that this initiative is worth giving a try. Our experience is that it gets more cost-effective as time goes on and produces some fantastic buildings."

A final framework of 6 to 10 members will be chosen by the end of the year.

The full shortlist

• Arran Partnership (Costain / Capita JV)
• Community Solutions for Primary Care (Morgan Sindall)
• Community Ventures (Miller / Primeria / BPE)
• Eric Wright Group
• Equity Solutions and Partners
• Express Lift Investment (Anagennao / Cyril Sweett / Sutton Harbour Holdings plc)
• Fulcrum Infrastructure (Building Better Health)
• Guildhouse UK PPP
• Laing O'Rourke
• Odyssey Healthcare (Babcock & Brown / Ashley House / GSL UK)
• Skanska
• Prime
• Primary Plus (John Laing)
• Vinci