John Hearle of Aitchison Raffety and Lynne Abbess of Hempsons have been newly elected joint chairmen of the Primary Care Premises Forum (PCPF) and chaired the annual general meeting and seminar held on 17 November 2012.

The AGM was attended by about eighty members representing all the main investors, funders, developers, lawyers and surveyors in the primary healthcare industry. Presentations were given on various relevant issues affecting the market. These included a session from Jim Latta, National Policy Lead at the Department of Health for GP and wider primary and community care infrastructure. He held what he described as a listening exercise, receiving comments and questions from the audience on the Health & Social Care Bill and on changes within the NHS.

Nigel Rawlings, the Chief Executive Officer of the Assura Group, spoke on the impact of the volatile financial markets on primary healthcare premises. Patrick Ryan, co-founder of the Guardstone Group, discussed the changes in dental property investments and David Reissner, Partner and Head of Healthcare at Charles Russell Solicitors, gave a detailed account of all the changes due in the regulations on pharmacy licences.

The afternoon was wound up by Edward White, Senior Manager of IPD's UK Client Services Team, which discussed the strong characteristics of rental growth and capital growth still found within the primary healthcare sector.

The presentations are available to view on the Primary Care Premises Forum website: www.pcpf.co.uk

Amongst its remit the PCPF aims to enhance the standing of private sector development within the NHS/pubic sector, to encourage the growth of an expert market to meet NHS targets and GP requirements and to speed up and hence reduce the cost of developing high quality healthcare premises.