Hospital wards sought as classrooms Hospital managers are being urged to identify unused wards and outbuildings that could be used to house the coalition's flagship free schools for as little as six months, in a sign of increasing urgency as ministers scramble to find new school places ahead of a looming capacity crunch. While all government departments are expected to give the Department for Education advance notice of vacant sites and buildings that might be suitable for the new schools, NHS trusts are now being pressed to tell education officials about any possible locations even if they do not consider them to be suitable. The government would have to find 256,000 new school places by September 2014 to cope with a surge in demand caused by a birth rate boom, the National Audit Office estimated last month. The DfE expects free schools to feature heavily in helping to close this gap, and has confirmed that those schools opening this September are expected to provide about 50,000 additional places when full. However, Natalie Evans, director of the New Schools Network, a charity that helps groups wanting to set up free schools, told the Financial Times that finding suitable sites had been the "biggest challenge" for those groups trying to set up a school. "The demand for free schools remains high - both in areas where there has been a boom in pupil numbers, or where parents are unhappy with the schools currently on offer - but the supply of suitable sites has struggled to keep pace," Ms Evans said, "In some cases this has led to schools being delayed by a whole school year, in others it has led to confusion amongst parents who want to send their child to the school but who understandably want some certainty over where the school will actually be before committing to a place," she added. The call to NHS chief executives, finance directors and estates managers came in a letter last month from Dan Poulter, health minister, focused on the release of public sector land for new housebuilding. But it also contained a plea for updates on vacant buildings available for at least six months which might be suitable for use as a free school, "on either a permanent or temporary basis." Dr Poulter made clear that all possible options should be considered. Sites could be leasehold or freehold. PFI should not be ruled out either," the minister wrote. It should be emphasised that the DfE would prefer that you send details of properties even where you feel that they do not quite fit into the . . . criteria. Clinics, health centres, day centres, hospitals, ambulance stations and care facilities have all been considered for conversion into school, although the costs involved are significant. Bolingbroke Academy, a free school which opened in September in Wandsworth, southwest London, stirred significant controversy given the £13m spent on purchasing the hospital site and more than £12m further on building work to make it suitable for pupils. When asked about the request to NHS managers, the DfE said it wanted to make it as easy as possible for free school proposers to find sites. "If proposers can secure an available government site, they will then be able to concentrate on creating their new school to raise standards and provide more good school places for parents," it said. The NHS" bid to dispose of surplus land for housing has been running for several years and in its latest incarnation has been promoted by ministers as a means to aid the health service towards its £20bn savings target by 2015. At present, 816 hectares of NHS land have been identified as potentially surplus - equivalent to about 1,000 football pitches. A number of sites have old Victorian asylum buildings such as the old Hellesdon Hospital site in Norwich, owned by Norfolk and Suffolk NHS Foundation Trust. Others are in high-value areas such as the Royal Free hospital's 0.7 hectare plot in north London's sought-after Muswell Hill. The site includes disused staff accommodation and buildings formerly used for the trust's High Security Infectious Diseases unit, which specialises in the treatment and isolation of rare highly infectious diseases such as Ebola and Marburg fever.