Let Larbert hospital be the last PFI

by John Gallacher

The PFI deal for the new Larbert Hospital was only signed the week before the Scottish Parliament Elections. The costs of that project have already increased by 50% from the £200 million in the outline business case to £300 million by October 2006.

Now that exclusive negotiations are continuing with the preferred bidder, the taxpayer can expect the costs to rocket still further. Cost increases in England at this stage range from 12.5 % to 393.9%!

This project will also see the privatisation of cleaning, catering etc. despite the fact that even the UK Treasury now discourages such privatisation as damaging to the quality of service.

A recent Health Group Policy Seminar called for the new Scottish executive to place a moratorium on new PFI projects. UNISON wants a public inquiry into PFI and demands that the issue feature high on their programme of government.

Tom Waterson, Chair of UNISON NHS Scotland said, "Implementing the plans for NHS Scotland requires revenue investment for community multi-disciplinary teams.Trained staff are needed, not rip-off mortgages which merely deliver millions of pounds of public money to private shareholders."

The seminar heard evidence from Mark Hellowell of Edinburgh University's Public Policy Research Unit, detailing the harm PFI is doing to budgets and services. Namely

· Boards with PFI projects pay twice as much to use their buildings than those paying normal capital charges.

· By 2027/8, Lothian will be paying an annual PFI charge of £68million; Lanarkshire will be paying £60.1 million.

· Five major new NHS projects - each with a value of over £100million - are in the planning stage (Glasgow Southern General/Sick Kids; Glasgow Royal; Fife District General; Forth Valley General; Lothian - Investing in Change).

The annual costs of PFI in NHS Scotland will rise from £107.1 million to £400 million.

· After this year new Treasury rules state that boards cannot continue their creative accountancy of transferring capital to revenue expenditure. Deficits will spiral.

· Evidence from England says that PFI is a major cause of the financial crises and service cuts besetting the NHS there.

Tom added, "PFI is like unexploded Trident missiles in NHS Scotland. If we allow more to go off then it will do untold damage to the delivery of NHS services for generations to come".

(Statistics based on a presentation to UNISON by Mark Hellowell, University of Edinburgh, 10 May 2007)

headlines . top