We are the only not-for-profit-redistribution business to have successfully become a partner in the NHS LIFT (Local Improvement Finance Trust) programme set up by the Government to improve primary healthcare facilities.

We are at the forefront of making these complex long-term partnerships work. Our joint venture companies have already completed and commissioned five new primary health care centres, with four more on-site and on schedule to open later this year.

As partners in the Bradford and Airedale NHS LIFT, we have helped develop and commission the £9m, 5500 m² Westbourne Green Community Health Care Centre at Manningham in Bradford. In addition to GP, pharmacy and dental facilities, Westbourne Green offers an 18-bed community hospital and a range of other health, social and community services.

Elsewhere, the LIFT project has delivered a £2m, 800m² medical centre for four GPs and rehoused a further nine doctors in a £4m health centre occupying an environmentally sensitive site at the heart of a conservation area.

In Tees Valley and South Durham, the LIFT Partnership has now completed and commissioned new facilities in Stockton, Hartlepool and Barnard Castle, where a new £10m, 48 bed community hospital offers minor surgery, dental services and day hospital facilities.

The total value of the current partnerships will be some £140million. Both projects are delivering real improvements to their local health economies.

When opening Lawson Street Health Centre, Stockton in October last year, then Prime Minister Tony Blair described it as "a building to be proud of" and "an exceptional facility that brings healthcare closer to home."