£25m PFI funded Polyclinic given go ahead

Source: Healthcare Digital

Date :03/08/2007 10:21:33

A £25 million 'polyclinic' for Beckenham - funded by a twenty-five year Private Finance Initiative (PFI) deal - has been given the go ahead.

The Beckenham Beacon development, part of a Local Improvement Finance Trust partnership, is going ahead despite PFI deals worth over £525 million being blamed for the debt crisis hitting hospitals.

New health secretary Alan Johnson has said that he intends to limit the healthcare sector setting up PFI deals.

The polyclinic will be built on the site of the old Beckenham Hospital.

Orpington MP John Horam blames the deficit of £87 million at Orpington Hospital on a bad PFI deal when the Princess Royal Hospital, Bromley was built.

A spokesman for Bromley Hospitals NHS Trust admitted they are facing serious financial problems and need to find up to £20 million of savings this year to balance the books.

Private finance deals are also being blamed for the wide ranging cuts planned for Queen Mary's Hospital, Sidcup as revealed by leaked emails published in the Times.

Jacqui Lait, Conservative MP for Beckenham, has obtained figures which reveal that during the last decade £525.6 million was committed to the capital cost alone of PFI projects in Kent, including Bromley and Bexley.

Mrs Lait said: "By involving the private sector all the risk is shifted to the government and the taxpayer.”

August 3 2007