Email
A spokesperson for health secretary Andrew Lansley said such payments are already increasing sharply, telling SmartHealthcare.com that the coalition government will have to pay "twice as much in PFI payments as Labour did in the last five years" over the same time period.
DoH figures show that overall unitary charge payments for PFI projects from 2010-11 to 2014-15 are expected to reach £7.2bn, compared with £3.9bn in real terms for the equivalent five year period from 2005-06 to 2009-10.
PFIs allow private companies to fund the building of hospitals and mental health units, while the NHS pays for the facilities over a number of years.
According to data obtained by the BBC, 103 PFI projects that were originally valued at £11.3bn will cost the NHS more than £50bn to repay. Once extra costs such as maintenance, cleaning and catering are considered the NHS is due to pay back £65.1bn over the lifetime of the deals, some of which last 25 years.
"Labour said they were using the unprecedented increase in NHS spending to build new hospitals, but in truth they left the bill to be picked up by us," Lansley's spokesperson said.
"Though the new hospitals which we are now paying for are welcome, other financing options should have been on the table. Our recent white paper sets out our intentions to give foundation trusts greater freedoms, which will involve their being able to access borrowing in a more flexible manner."
According to DoH data, the NHS currently pays back a total of £1.25bn each year, but this figure is expected to increase until 2030 when it will hit £2.3bn. The final payment will not be made until 2048.
The NHS budget has been ring-fenced, but the government has said that it expects the health service to make £20bn in efficiency savings by 2014.
Victor Almeida, healthcare analyst at Kable, believes that although the coalition government is committed to granting trusts more liberties including flexible borrowing and unlimited patient chargeable services, it will not be easy for hospitals to extricate themselves from PFI deals lasting years or decades.
"It will be very challenging for some trusts to spend up to 15% of their budget on PFI payments and on top of that make a further 20% efficiency savings in order to cope with our population's increasing health demands, despite the improved financial and funding freedoms," Almeida said.
He also thinks there would be "disastrous consequences" if some hospitals were allowed to go bankrupt before their PFI term was finished.
"Given the state of the economy and government austerity measures, it is extremely unlikely that new PFI initiatives will be created in the next few years. But they could certainly recur in five to 10 years, once the 'anti-previous government' rhetoric has worn off," Almeida added.
;
Comments