The “residual value obligations” are part of the deal for the £1.5bn programme to provide extra operations for NHS patients, and were needed, along with guarantees of patient volumes, to attract new entrants into the NHS market, according to the department.

The first round of negotiations on whether the contracts will be renewed are likely to start next year.

Private operators will have the choice of agreeing a new contract, staying in the NHS market as an independent operator, switching their business to a mix of public and private patients, or selling the centres on if they can realise more for them than the residual value that the NHS is obliged to pay.

The health department said that if the NHS did acquire the property, it would have the choice of selling it, leasing it to private providers or using it directly for NHS patients.

The scale of payment – and indeed whether any residual value will have to be paid – varies between the centres, reflecting the individual deals struck with different providers.

Meanwhile, family doctors have voted overwhelmingly, if reluctantly, for a deal that will see part of the money in their existing contracts go towards paying for extended opening hours in some GP practices.

Faced with an option the government was offering, and one it said it would impose, the British Medical Association said that more than 90 per cent of GPs who voted had chosen the government’s initial offer.

GPs were also questioned about their attitude to the government bringing private sector operators in to general practice, with 93 per cent opposed, declaring the move will be bad for patients and the service as a whole.

Dr Laurence Buckman, the GPs’ chairman, said family doctors believe “they are being railroaded into an unrealistic vision of extended hours”, but it was time to draw a line under the dispute.

From:
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/8e1408e6-ebd1-11dc-9493-0000779fd2ac.html