Private finance plans for NHS buildings | NHS
Labor MPs are absolutely right to reject Wes Streeting’s plan to use private capital to build neighborhood health centers (Labour MPs urge Reeves to abandon plans for private funding for NHS buildings, November 21). Like a family using a payday loan to buy their house, yes, we would end up with a building, but we would have to sacrifice meals to meet the payments.
Given Rachel Reeves’ lack of fiscal space, no one believes the NHS budget will increase year on year to keep pace with the combined financial impact of inflation, the growing health needs of our aging population and possible rises in drug prices. So adding to this cocktail a new burden of private financial debt will only cause trusts to skimp on the one thing they have control over: patient care.
Research has shown that some trusts pay more in annual debt repayments for private finance initiatives (PFIs) than they do for patient medicines. A new briefing from We Own It discusses the different models of private funding and how they are harming NHS finances. The Streeting PFI model will be no different.
Reeves and Streeting have a number of non-private funding options available to fund investment in NHS capacity. Reeves has already shown she can recoup wasted public funds with Covid contracts, so why not with historic PFI deals?
Second, they could introduce VAT on private healthcare, a policy supported by Neil Kinnock. This would raise around £2 billion.
Streeting and Reeves’ hands are not tied. If they end up resurrecting private funding in the NHS, it will be a political choice.
Johnbosco Nwogbo
Responsible for the We Own It campaign
Labor MPs urging the chancellor to abandon plans for private funding for the NHS are overlooking the danger that, under current budgetary rules, health centers cannot be built without private investment. As the National Audit Office found, PFI built projects “on time and on budget”. He also blocked maintenance for years, protecting the NHS from cost-cutting chancellors.
Ninety hospitals were rebuilt using PFI in less than a decade, with better value for money. In contrast, the program to build new non-PFI hospitals, announced six years ago, will not see most hospitals start to be built until 2032.
The Local Improvement Finance Trust (NHS Lift) program – which gave the public sector a stake – has built 350 health centers in some of the most deprived communities. We cannot allow ideology to leave NHS patients waiting in dilapidated, overcrowded buildings.
Lord Hutton
Former Labor Minister and Chairman of the Association of Infrastructure Investors in Public-Private Partnerships
