Lansley’s claims about hospital PFI debt ‘misleading’

DoH assessment contradicts health secretary’s warning about the number of hospitals ‘at risk of collapse’ due to PFI debt Andrew Lansley’s claim that 22 hospital trusts are at risk of collapse over their private finance initiative (PFI) debts has been laid open to question by NHS performance data rating most of them as financially sound. The health secretary said on Wednesday 22 trusts in England were “on the brink of financial collapse” because they had been “landed with PFI deals they simply cannot afford” by the Labour government. But the Department of Health’s own latest quarterly assessment of the NHS’s performance rated 17 of them as “performing” financially between January and March 2011. Only four were deemed “underperforming”, while the performance of one, South London Healthcare, is “under review”. Lord Crisp, the chief executive of the NHS when many of the PFI deals were agreed under Labour, also cast doubt on Lansley’s dramatic warning by pointing out that the cost of repayments under those contracts amounted to only about 1% of the entire service’s annual budget of more than £100bn. Professor John Appleby, chief economist at the influential King’s Fund health thinktank , said it was wrong to argue that the NHS’s financial problems were caused by such deals. “To simply blame PFI is simply misleading at best,” he said. Shadow health secretary John Healey accused Lansley of “trying to offload blame for the present problems his policies are causing in the NHS”. Lansley, who said some trusts had told him that they could not afford their PFI repayments, was forced to partially retract the claim when an aide conceded that “we’re not pretending PFI is the only problem they [hospitals] face”. The DoH later insisted its assessment of trusts’ financial stability was unrelated to Lansley’s list. “The list of 22 trusts is 100% accurate and is based on returns from NHS trusts to the DoH setting out the main issues that need to be addressed for organisations to achieve financial stability. The 22 listed are those that specified [in April] that their PFI was one of the issues affecting them,” said a spokesman. But one of the 22, the North Bristol NHS Trust , voiced “puzzlement” that it was on Lansley’s list. The £374m PFI deal it had struck to build the new Southmead Hospital would not interfere with its ongoing application to become a semi-independent foundation trust hospital, a spokesman said, adding: “The PFI deal equates to yearly repayments of less than 7% of our overall annual turnover. Repayments have been factored into our long-term financial plans, so we know they are affordable.” Mike Farrar, chief executive of the NHS Confederation, which represents hospitals, said: “We are pleased that the government has been upfront with the fact that PFI is a problem for many hospitals. But PFI is not the principal cause of the NHS’s financial problems. “Repayments on PFI debt is likely to be £1.5bn this year, yet by 2014-15 the NHS needs to find savings of £20bn. To address this we need to start looking at the NHS’s big-ticket costs, such as how we deliver care and where. We need pragmatism and leadership to do this as it will involve some extremely difficult decisions. A political blame game is a waste of time.” Health policy NHS Private finance initiative Health Andrew Lansley Public services policy Polly Curtis Denis Campbell guardian.co.uk

Posted by on September 22, 2011. Filed under News, Politics, World News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.