THE COUNTY’S health and care trust is one of more than 100 NHS trusts planning to raise cash by selling off surplus property.

The Worcestershire Health and Care NHS Trust plans to sell two sites in the next two years – the Moor Street clinic in Worcester city centre and land near the Keith Winter Close Mental Health Unit in Bromsgrove – which it says it no longer needs for local healthcare provision.

The trust estimates that 10 homes could be built on each site but has not revealed what the market value for each of the sites is.

Data also reveals that the trust has raised £693,000 from the sale of the Shrubbery Avenue Rehab Hostel in Worcester and All Saints House – also known as Spadesbourne House – in Bromsgrove.

Since 2011, the Department of Health and Social Care has been tasked with selling enough public land for more than 40,000 homes to be built, the vast majority of which will be on land owned by individual NHS trusts.

In 2017, an independent, Government-commissioned report on the NHS estate recommended a number of new incentives to encourage trusts to speed up land sales.

These included increasing charges for those that do not sell surplus property and blocking them from accessing funds for capital spending - money trusts spend on maintaining, improving or acquiring buildings and other assets.

For the last four years the Department of Health has transferred money from this budget into the pot for day-to-day spending.

The NHS trade association NHS Providers says a lack of access to this cash has put trusts under pressure to raise funds by alternative means, including through land sales.

They have called on the Government to ensure trusts have the resources they need to maintain and improve their facilities.

The British Medical Association added that the drive to sell could compromise patient care.

They said it was vital to safeguard the NHS from “perverse short-term financial incentives” that could see the NHS estate reduced to a level insufficient to meet future needs.

A spokesman for the Department of Health and Social Care said: “We have been clear that NHS land should only be sold when it is surplus and local NHS leaders decide it is no longer needed for future clinical use.

"Trusts which have chosen to dispose of surplus land are reinvesting the money on improving patient care in modern and upgraded facilities and creating new homes - including for NHS staff."