PFI cost for Newark Hospital revealed
Newly-released figures show more than £1/4m a month is being spent paying back the PFI debt on Newark Hospital.
Sherwood Forest Hospitals NHS Trust spends £3.56m a month servicing its total PFI debt made up of £3.29m on King's Mill Hospital, Sutton-in-Ashfield, and £270,000 on Newark. That is 16% of the trust's total operating expenditure.
The figures have been obtained by Ashfield Liberal Democrat councillor Jason Zadrozny under the Freedom of Information Act.
According to the figures redevelopment at Newark cost £8.5m and £298.9m at King's Mill.
The PFI contract runs until March 31, 2043. It is estimated that the total cost over its full term from 2005 to 2043 will be £2.5bn.
Within the 2.5bn debt repayment and interest is estimated at £783m while service charges such as building maintenance, catering, cleaning, and portering amounts to £1.717m.
Mr Zadrozny said: "This is the biggest scandal our NHS has ever seen.
"We knew the debt problem was bad but not quite on this scale."
Paul Baggaley, secretary of the Say Yes to Newark Hospital Campaign, said: "What's going to happen is that the trust is going to spend all its money on the buildings and nothing on treating patients.
"Its budget is being squeezed. It's simply unsustainable. Decisions have to be made at a high level to sort it out. There is no alternative."
Mr Peter Harris, a Southwell town councillor who was vice-chairman of the trust when the PFI contract was signed, said: "We explored all options including building the new hospital in the public sector.
"But a public sector building was expressly refused by then Chancellor Gordon Brown who insisted that the new hospital had to be built by the private sector.
"What has happened at the hospitals since is a scandal. Just altering a shelf or changing a plug socket costs a fortune."
Independent regulator Monitor stepped in in 2012 because the trust was struggling to meet its PFI commitment.
Mr Paul O’Connor, chief executive of Sherwood Forest Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, said: “We are absolutely committed to providing high quality care to all of our patients, and as such the costs related to our PFI do not have a financial impact on our frontline services.
“It is true the costs associated with the PFI contract remain expensive, but the facilities on offer to patients and their families at our hospitals are some of the best in the country.
"At King’s Mill Hospital over 50% of our rooms are single occupancy, infection rates across the Trust remain low and patients consistently rate our ward environments highly in national surveys.
“We continue to proactively manage the costs related to our PFI and are in discussion with Monitor and the Department of Health to achieve a permanent solution.”
