{"id":279342,"date":"2025-11-23T18:38:07","date_gmt":"2025-11-23T18:38:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/279342\/"},"modified":"2025-11-23T18:38:07","modified_gmt":"2025-11-23T18:38:07","slug":"private-finance-plans-for-nhs-buildings-nhs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/279342\/","title":{"rendered":"Private finance plans for NHS buildings | NHS"},"content":{"rendered":"

Labour MPs are absolutely right to reject Wes Streeting\u2019s plan to use private capital to build neighbourhood health centres (Labour MPs urge Reeves to drop private finance plans for NHS buildings, 21 November<\/a>). Like a family using a\u00a0payday loan to buy their home, yes, we\u2019d end up with a building, but we\u2019ll have to sacrifice meals to\u00a0keep up with the payments.<\/p>\n

Given Rachel Reeves\u2019s lack of fiscal wiggle room, no one believes\u00a0that the NHS\u2019s budget will increase year-on-year to keep pace\u00a0with the combined financial impact of inflation, the growing health needs of our ageing population and possible rising drug\u00a0prices. So adding a new private finance debt burden to this\u00a0cocktail will only result in trusts skimping on the only one of\u00a0those things they have control over: patient care.<\/p>\n

Research has shown that some trusts pay out more in annual debt repayments for private finance initiatives (PFI) than they do for medicines for patients<\/a>. A new briefing by We Own It<\/a> discusses different private finance models and how they each damage NHS finances. The Streeting PFI model won\u2019t be any different.<\/p>\n

There are a number of non\u2011private finance options available to Reeves and Streeting to\u00a0fund investment in NHS capacity. Reeves\u00a0has already shown that she can claw back wasted public funds with Covid contracts<\/a>, so why not with historic PFI deals?<\/p>\n

Second, they could introduce VAT on private healthcare, a policy supported by Neil Kinnock. This would raise around \u00a32bn<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Streeting and Reeves\u2019s hands are\u00a0not tied. If they end up resurrecting private finance in the NHS<\/a>, it will be a political choice.
Johnbosco Nwogbo
Lead campaigner, We Own It<\/p>\n

Labour MPs urging the chancellor to drop private finance plans for the NHS overlook the danger that, under the current fiscal rules, health centres won\u2019t get built without private investment. As the National Audit Office found, PFI built projects \u201con time and on budget<\/a>\u201d. It also locked in maintenance for years \u2013 protecting\u00a0the NHS from cost\u2011cutting chancellors.<\/p>\n

Ninety hospitals<\/a> were rebuilt under PFIs in less than a decade, with better value for money. By contrast, the non-PFI new hospital building programme<\/a>, announced six years ago, will not see most hospitals start being built until\u00a02032.<\/p>\n

The NHS Lift (local improvement\u00a0finance trust) programme<\/a> \u2013 which gave a stake to the public sector \u2013 built 350 health centres<\/a> in some of the most deprived communities. We can\u2019t let ideology\u00a0leave NHS patients waiting in crumbling and\u00a0overcrowded buildings.
Lord Hutton
Former Labour cabinet minister and chair of the Association of Infrastructure Investors in Public Private Partnerships<\/p>\n

Have an opinion on anything you\u2019ve read in the Guardian today? Please email<\/a> us your letter and it will be considered for publication in our letters<\/a> section.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Labour MPs are absolutely right to reject Wes Streeting\u2019s plan to use private capital to build neighbourhood health…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":279343,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[43],"tags":[102,2960,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-279342","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-healthcare","8":"tag-health","9":"tag-healthcare","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/279342","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=279342"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/279342\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/279343"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=279342"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=279342"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=279342"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}